Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Why this kind of crap always comes from the UK? (Score 1) 214

by b4nd0ler0 (#33807740) Attached to: New CCTV Site In UK Pays People To Watch
Damn right! when walk around the streets I expect to be anonymous (except for the people that know me) I don't think it will be possible if we are surrounded by cameras recording every move.
Besides, it doesn't feel right to have a society where its citizens are constantly watching each other remotely for possible criminal behaviour. That sounds screwed up if you ask me.
On a normal situation if I do something wrong and a cop sees me, I can be stopped and confronted on the spot, face to face and have the chance to tell them to bugger off and mind their own business if I feel it's not right. But with these remote cameras business it will be some faceless entity, where is the accountability? What if I'm kissing my girlfriend or something less glamourous like scratching my ass or picking my nose and there is a bunch of freaks watching from fu**k knows where and zooming in on me?

With these kind of schemes we are giving goverment more power than ever before, shifting the balance further against the individual. The right to privacy does matter and we shouldn't give it up so easily.
Privacy

New CCTV Site In UK Pays People To Watch 214

Posted by timothy from the people-to-watch-people dept.
pyrosine writes "Have you ever felt like being paid for watching live CCTV footage? The BBC are reporting CCTV site, 'Internet Eyes' is doing exactly that. Offering up to £1000 to people who report suspicious activity, the scheme seems an easy way to make money. Not everyone is pleased with the scheme though; the Information Commissioner's Office is worried it will lead to voyeurism or misuse, but what difference does it make when you can find said webcams with a simple Google search?"
Government

Largest Simulated Cyber Attack To Date 71

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-know-how-to-party dept.
Orome1 noted that the government will be running simulated cyber attacks as part of the Department of Homeland Security's Cyber Storm III exercise. It says "The exercise will be controlled from the Secret Service headquarters, where organizers from various agencies will be sending out 'exercise injects,' information that a player will receive that indicates that a certain event has taken place as part of the narrative set up by the organizers. This goes a bit beyond a paper narrative, including fake log data, drives that may contain fake malware, and fake event history, and is dynamic, meaning that it can change dependent on the actions the players take." ...which makes me wonder how effective this test would actually be.
Piracy

Latest Version of ACTA Leaks 87

Posted by timothy from the most-transparent-administration-ever dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid points to a freshly leaked version of ACTA available on La Quadrature Du Net. While the text will need further analysis, the most recent look at the text suggests that there is no Three Strikes law, but anti-circumvention laws have a new twist to them with regard to exceptions in that 'they do not significantly impair the adequacy of legal protection [...] or the effectiveness of legal remedies for violations of those measures.' Overall, the text still hints at a global DMCA with notice-and-takedown."
The Almighty Buck

UK Video Game Tax Cuts Sabotaged? 123

Posted by Soulskill from the i-wonder-if-it-rhymes-with-shmactivision dept.
ninjacheeseburger writes "Develop recently published an article claiming that the UK government was put under pressure by one of the biggest game companies in the world to cancel planned tax breaks for video game developers. This company had apparently viewed game tax relief as a measure that would have given the UK an unfair advantage over other nations."
Security

Stand-Alone Antivirus Software? 159

Posted by timothy from the lonely-job dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I work for a company that repairs specialty devices that have an embedded Mini-ATX motherboard without a CD-ROM drive and run Windows XP Home. And while the USB flash drives we insert into them have a physical write-protect tab, we still encounter a (rather annoying) display dialog from malware/viruses to remove the write-protect so the malware can infect the flash drive. We don't remove the write-protect, obviously, but would like to offer our customers the option of removing the malware/virus without having to install any software. We would rather not install/uninstall antivirus software even for one-time use, due to various licensing issues, nor do we want to connect to the Internet to use web-based online scanners. Is there any stand-alone anti-virus/anti-malware software for Windows that can be run directly from the write-protected flash drive itself?"
Earth

First Photos From the European Solar Decathlon 26

Posted by timothy from the cool-little-houses dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The 2010 Solar Decathlon Europe kicked off today in Madrid, Spain, with a stunning array of solar-powered prefab homes. Seventeen teams from around the globe are battling it out in the center of the city to see who has the most efficient solar-powered and eco-friendly house. Just as in the competition in Washington DC, the teams will be graded on minimal energy use, innovative architecture and engineering, sustainability, and more. Check out these exclusive photos from the event for a first look at the most exciting houses in this year's competition."
Open Source

Open Source Developer Knighted 101

Posted by samzenpus from the knights-who-say-free dept.
unixfan writes "Georg Greve, developer of Open Document Format and active FOSS developer, has received a knighthood in Germany for his work. From the article: 'Some weeks ago I received news that the embassy in Berne had unsuccessfully been trying to contact me under FSFE's old office address in Zurich. This was a bit odd and unexpected. So you can probably understand my surprise to be told by the embassy upon contacting them that on 18 December 2009 I had been awarded the Cross of Merit on ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) by the Federal Republic of Germany. As you might expect, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I was, in fact, rather shaken. You could also say shocked. Quick Wikipedia research revealed this to be part of the orders of knighthood, making this a Knight's Cross.'"
Moon

Decades-Old Soviet Reflector Spotted On the Moon 147

Posted by Soulskill from the always-in-the-last-place-you-look dept.
cremeglace writes "No one had seen a laser reflector that Soviet scientists had left on the moon almost 40 years ago, despite years of searching. Turns out searchers had been looking kilometers in the wrong direction. On 22 April, a team of physicists finally saw an incredibly faint flash from the reflector, which was ferried across the lunar surface by the Lunokhod 1 rover. The find comes thanks to NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which last month imaged a large area where the rover was reported to have been left. Then the researchers, led by Tom Murphy of the University of California, San Diego, could search one football-field-size area at a time until they got a reflection."
Image

Google Street View Shoots the Same Woman 43 Times 106

Posted by samzenpus from the get-your-face-out-there dept.
Geoffrey.landis writes "Terry Southgate discovered that his wife Wendy appears on the Google Street View of his neighborhood not once or twice but a whopping 43 times. From the article: 'It seems as if the Street View car simply followed the same route as Wendy and Trixie. However, Wendy was a little suspicious that the car was doing something on the "tricksie" side. Several of the Street View shots show Wendy looking with some concern towards the car that was, well, to put it politely, crawling along the curb. "I didn't know what it was doing. It was just driving round very, very slowly," Wendy told the Sun.' The next best thing to being a movie star — a Street View star!"
Hardware

Startup's Submerged Servers Could Cut Cooling Costs 147

Posted by timothy from the alliteration-alternation dept.
1sockchuck writes "Are data center operators ready to abandon hot and cold aisles and submerge their servers? An Austin startup says its liquid cooling enclosure can cool high-density server installations for a fraction of the cost of air cooling in traditional data centers. Submersion cooling using mineral oil isn't new, dating back to the use of Fluorinert in the Cray 2. The new startup, Green Revolution Cooling, says its first installation will be at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (also home to the Ranger supercomputer). The company launched at SC09 along with a competing liquid cooling play, the Iceotope cooling bags."
Piracy

P2P and P2P Links Ruled Legal In Spain 265

Posted by samzenpus from the pirate-friendly dept.
Nieriko writes After three years of arduous litigation, Jesus Guerra Calderon, owner of both a small bar and the P2P link webpage 'elrincondejesus.com' has beaten the SGAE (something like the Spanish version of the RIAA). The historic ruling states not only the legality of link webpages, but also the legality of P2P file-sharing networks. Quoting the judge: 'P2P Networks as mere data transmision networks between individual internet users, do not breach any rights protected by the Intellectual Property Law.' Downloading a file (from a P2P network) for private use is perfectly legal as long as there is no lucrative or collective use of the downloaded copy."
The Internet

Spain's Proposed Internet Law Sparks Protest, Change 103

Posted by timothy from the passion-of-gen-y dept.
[rvr] writes "Last Monday, the Spanish Government published the latest draft for the Sustainable Economy Act, which would enable a Commission dependent of the Ministry of Culture to take down websites without a court order, in cases of Intellectual Property piracy. On Wednesday, using Google Wave, a group of journalists, bloggers, professionals and creators composed and issued a Manifesto in Defense of Fundamental Rights on the Internet, stating that 'Copyright should not be placed above citizens' fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.' Quickly, more than 50,000 blogs and sites re-published the manifesto. On Thursday morning, the Ministry of Culture Ángeles González Sinde (former president of the Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) organized a meeting with a group of Internet experts and signers of the Manifesto. The meeting was narrated in real time via Twitter and concluded without any agreement. On Thursday afternoon, the Prime Minister's staff had a private meeting with the Ministry of Culture and some party members (who also expressed their opposition to the draft). Finally, Spain Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero announced in a press meeting that the text will be changed and a court order will continue to be a requirement, but [the government] still will search for ways to fight Internet piracy."

Slashdot Top Deals

Today is a good day for information-gathering. Read someone else's mail file.

Close