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Submission + - Norman Scarth 85 year old solitary confinment (blogspot.com)

Submitted by beadwindow
beadwindow writes: For readers not aware Norman Scarth, the 85 year old campaigner against corruption in Britains Courts and Judicary has been locked in solitary confinment in Leeds. Having endured the Artic Convoys, as a Royal Navy sailor fighting for his country, Norman has now been 'banged up' for using a recording device in court , because the court refused to provide hearing loops' . Denied his medication Norman is suffering badly
Censorship

Submission + - Canadian Court Sides With Anon Identity Online 2

Submitted by bs0d3
bs0d3 writes: Michael Geist writes "Anonymous speech can be empowering — whistleblowers depend upon it to safeguard their identity and political participants in some countries face severe repercussions if they speak out publicly — but it also carries the danger of posts that cross the line into defamation without appropriate accountability."

Although I disagree that defamation is an acceptable reason for a court to find someones identity, the outcome of this trial seems favorable. The court was not asked to determine whether the posts at issue were in fact defamatory. Rather, it simply faced the question of whether it should order the disclosure of personal information about the posters themselves so that someone could proceed with a defamation lawsuit.

The court relied on "Warman v. Fournier", a previous Canadian defamation case and asked, "(1) Whether there was a reasonable expectation of anonymity; (2) Whether the plaintiff established a prima facie case of wrongdoing by the poster; (3) Whether the plaintiff tried to identify the poster and was unable to do so; and (4) Whether the public interest favouring disclosure outweigh the legitimate interests of freedom of expression and right to privacy of the persons sought to be identified if the disclosure is ordered." In this case the order to identify the poster was denied. Since the plaintiff did not identify the specific defamatory words, she failed to establish a prima facie case of defamation. Moreover, the court also ruled that the posters had a reasonable expectation of anonymity and that there were insufficient efforts to try to identify them.
Android

Submission + - Mobile Device Security (keving.ca)

Submitted by ironicsky
ironicsky writes: (For Ask Slashdot)
Slashdotters, I recently switched from an iPhone to an Samsung Galaxy Infuse running Android. Coming from a world of "perfect security" as provided by Apple *sarcasm* to the wide open world of Android, does anyone use any mobile security software that provides the ability to: track the devices location, scan apps for malware/viruses, remotely lock/wipe the device if its misplaced and other useful security features? Are you using a single app/suite or multiple apps to accomplish this? Are the best solutions free or paid?
Intel

Submission + - Intel To Halt MeeGo Development? (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Taipei-based DigiTimes is reporting that Intel will 'temporarily discontinue development of its MeeGo OS due to a lack of enthusiasm for the platform from handset and tablet PC vendors. Instead, Intel will focus on hardware products, with its handset platforms to be paired with either Android or Windows Phone in 2012.' While Intel is taking the 'no comment' route, there are a couple of reasons to believe the rumor, says blogger Brian Proffitt: First, 'DigiTimes is located very close to the actual manufacturing plants in Taiwan and typically they have a pretty good handle on what's going on in the electronics industry because of that proximity. Second, the MeeGo operating system has really made near-zero progress on smartphones and tablets.'"
Google

Submission + - Google's cookies leak data (i-programmer.info)

Submitted by mikejuk
mikejuk writes: Recent research reveals details of how Google's SID cookie can be used to discover what websites a user has visited. In principle the cookie is a low security risk because it doesn't allow acess to any data without authentication. Hence it is sometimes transmitted in the clear and easy to intercept. With a little help from the Google Search History and the "Visited Pages" filter it is possible to list up to 80% of the pages that the user has visited. Throw into the mix the "social" filter and you can discover a lot more. So cookies aren't always innocent after all...
Programming

Submission + - JavaScript Toolkit v1.1.0 Released (google.com)

Submitted by Mensa Babe
Mensa Babe writes: Oliver Morgan, the original author of the JavaScript Toolkit, or just "The Toolkit" as it is known in the JavaScript community, has just announced the release of the long awaited version 1.1.0, with better documentation and added function support.

Quoting the project documentation: "[JavaScript] Toolkit offers a large number of integrated methods and utilities to help enrich the javascript object library. Javascript was built originally for browsers and as such lacks a large number of data utility methods with are seen in languages such as Python and Ruby. However times have changed and JavaScript is being used more and more in backend platforms. JS Toolkit aims to bridge that gap and provide everyone a modern developer needs to produce fast, secure and tidy code quick and easily."

The Toolkit fully supports ECMAScript 5 and runs on the most important virtual machines that we have today, including Node.JS, V8, Rhino, RingoJS, and many others. It continues to be actively developed.
Science

Submission + - Floating Houses Designed for Low-Lying Countries (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Venice may soon be sharing its "Floating City" moniker thanks to a research project developing "amphibian houses" that are designed to float in the event of a flood. The FLOATEC project sees the primary market for the houses as the Netherlands, whose low-lying land makes it particularly susceptible to the effects of rising sea levels. Such housing technology could also allow small island-states in the Indian and Pacific Oceans that are at the risk of disappearing in the next 100 years to maintain their claim to statehood through the use of artificial, floating structures.
Security

Submission + - DigiNotar Attack Targeted Yahoo, Mozilla, Tor Cert (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: There are more signs that a July compromise of DigiNotar, a certificate authority based in the Netherlands, may have been driven by political motives. Digital certificates belonging to Mozilla, Yahoo.com, Wordpress and The Tor Project were among dozens reported stolen from DigiNotar, reports say, and the CA is apparently not telling authorities at Tor what happened to their certificate.

The plot has begun to thicken in The Netherlands, as well, as the Dutch government is making preparations for the eventuality that the government's PKI, called DigiNotar PKIoverheid, may have to be shut down because it was compromised, too.
Security

Submission + - UK Arrests 2 More Anonymous Hacktivists (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "The UK's Metropolitan Police Service has arrested two men who are suspected of conducting DDoS attacks as well as hacking law enforcement and government webs sites. Police said the men are believed to have used the online identity "Kayla" that was allegedly instrumental in the hacking attack in February against HBGary, a security company, that sought to expose Anonymous. Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, Anonymous claims to have hacked a Texas Police Website and released some private email from police officers containing racist and sexist content."

Submission + - 'Oldest' Wooly Rhino Discovered (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Quince alPillan
Quince alPillan writes: A woolly rhino fossil dug up on the Tibetan Plateau is believed to be the oldest specimen of its kind yet found.

The creature lived some 3.6 million years ago — long before similar beasts roamed northern Asia and Europe in the ice ages that gripped those regions.

The discovery team says the existence of this ancient rhino supports the idea that the frosty Tibetan foothills of the Himalayas were the evolutionary cradle for these later animals.
Media

1928 Time Traveler Caught On Film? 685

Posted by samzenpus from the I-hate-time-travel-stories dept.
Many of you have submitted a story about Irish filmmaker George Clarke, who claims to have found a person using a cellphone in the "unused footage" section of the DVD The Circus, a Charlie Chaplin movie filmed in 1928. To me the bigger mystery is how someone who appears to be the offspring of Ram-Man and The Penguin got into a movie in the first place, especially if they were talking to a little metal box on set. Watch the video and decide for yourself.
Handhelds

The iPhone Serial Port Hack 217

Posted by CmdrTaco from the totally-top-secret dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The iPhone's little known secret, a hidden serial port, is revealed. 'The real benefit in all of this is that there are so many console packages for iPhone in Cydia now that you can have a fully functional computer, as useful as a Linux box, but without carrying around a laptop.'"
Google

Oracle Claims Google 'Directly Copied' Our Java Code 675

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thats-not-fair dept.
itwbennett writes "On Wednesday, Oracle amended the lawsuit it filed against Google in August, saying that 'approximately one third of Android's Application Programmer Interface (API) packages' are 'derivative of Oracle's copyrighted Java API packages' and related documents. In particular, 'the infringed elements of Oracle America's copyrighted work include Java method and class names, definitions, organization, and parameters; the structure, organization and content of Java class libraries; and the content and organization of Java's documentation,' Oracle says. 'In at least several instances, Android computer program code also was directly copied from copyrighted Oracle America code,' Oracle alleges."

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