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Programming

How to Deal With Stolen Code? 799

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the delicate-situations dept.
greenrom writes "I work for a small company as a software developer. While investigating a bug in one of our products, I found source code on a website that was nearly identical to code used in our product. Even the comments were the same. It's obvious that a developer at our company found some useful code on the web and copied it. The original author didn't attach any particular license to the code. It's just 200 lines of code the author posted in a forum. Is it legitimate to use source code that's publicly available but doesn't fall under any particular license? If not, what's the best way to deal with this kind of situation? Since I'm now the only person working on this code, there's no practical way to report the situation confidentially. I'm new to the company, and the developer who copied the code is the project lead. Reporting him to management doesn't seem like a good career move. I could rewrite the copied code without reporting him, but since the product is very close to release it would be difficult to make a significant change without providing some justification."
Space

Submission + - First details of manned Mars mission from NASA (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by OriginalArlen
OriginalArlen writes: The BBC has a first look at NASA's initial concepts for a manned Mars mission, currently pencilled in for 2031. The main vehicle would be assembled on orbit over three or four launches of the planned Ares V heavy lift rocket. New abilities to repair, replace, and even produce replacement parts will be needed to provide enough self-sufficiency a 30 months mission, including 16 months on the surface. The presentation was apparently delivered at a meeting of the Lunar Exploration Management Group, although there's nothing on their site yet.
Censorship

Senate Committee Passes FCC Indecency Bill 507

Posted by Zonk from the they-thought-of-the-children dept.
An anonymous reader writes "US Senate Commerce Committee today passed a bill that would allow the FCC to fine broadcasters for slip of the tongue expletives, negating a ruling by federal appeals court in New York that commission's policy on 'fleeting expletives' is arbitrary and capricious. 'A mandate by Congress that a "fleeting expletive" can now be found indecent will create a vast chilling effect on broadcast speech, the advocacy group Center for Democracy and Technology claims. CDT points out that prior to this bill and the FCC's policy change, the FCC exercised discretion in determining which utterances were indecent, and consistently found that one-time uses of curse words were not indecent.'"
Microsoft

Hotmail Delivers Far Fewer Emails with Attachments 315

Posted by CowboyNeal from the dead-letter-office dept.
biednyFacet writes "It has long been suspected that there is a silent policy that makes Hotmail automatically delete the majority of attachments to save on bandwidth and internal disk space. Therefore it really doesn't matter if every client has access to 2GB of storage since they don't deliver the attachments to fill that space up anyway. If that truly is the case, then Microsoft may be liable for several hundred million cases of conspiracy and mail fraud."
Google

The Downide of Your ISP Turning to Gmail 266

Posted by kdawson from the Google-Apps-Partner-Edition dept.
SlinkySausage writes "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email operation to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to grow its user base rapidly (Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M). There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the dark side of Google's offer. Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along."
Patents

Linus Responds To Microsoft Patent Claims 496

Posted by kdawson from the just-FUD dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Linus Torvalds has a sharp retort to Microsoft executives' statements in a Fortune article that Linux violates 235 Microsoft patents. In an emailed response to InformationWeek's Charlie Babcock, Torvalds writes: 'It's certainly a lot more likely that Microsoft violates patents than Linux does.' He added: 'Basic operating system theory was pretty much done by the end of the 1960s. IBM probably owned thousand of really "fundamental" patents... The fundamental stuff... has long, long since lost any patent protection.'" Torvalds also commented on Microsoft's stated intention not to sue Linux users: "They'd have to name the patents then, and they're probably happier with the FUD than with any lawsuit."
Software

Can Web Apps Ever Truly Replace Desktop Apps? 196

Posted by Zonk from the letting-it-all-hang-online dept.
tooger writes "Matt Hartley from MadPenguin.org opines that web apps can never replace desktop applications, for a variety of reasons. He writes, 'Some of you may point out that the data stored on your hard drive is not of any real consequence, but I would disagree. It is more than probable that a skilled, disgruntled employee of the company you trust with your data could ... sell off your personal information.' Given the real danger of privacy concerns, identity theft, and uptime, will web-based applications ever truly replace locally hosted software?"

Macrovision Responds to Steve Jobs on DRM 221

Posted by Zonk from the thinking-out-loud dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Macrovision Corporation, best known for its long history of DRM implementations, (everything from VCRs to software copy protection), has responded to Steve Jobs open letter regarding DRM. With ample experience and despite the obvious vested interests, it's great to hear their point of view. In the letter they acknowledge the 'difficult challenges' of implementing DRM that is truly 'interoperable and open'. At the same time they also feel that DRM 'will increase electronic distribution', if implemented properly, because 'DRM increases not decreases consumer value', such as by enabling people to rent content at a lower price than ownership, and lowering risks for content producers. While I'm impressed they responded, I can't say I'm impressed by lofty goals that might not be reached for years. The reality is, current DRM implementations often leave users with the bad end of the deal. What do you think? Should people give DRM manufacturers more time to overcome the challenges and get it right?"

Father of Internet Warns Against Net Neutrality 322

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the my-two-dads dept.
An anonymous reader writes "At a recent talk at the Computer History Museum Robert Kahn, co-inventor of TCP/IP, warned against net neutrality legislation that could hinder experimentation and innovation. Calling 'net neutrality' a slogan, Khan also cautioned against 'dogmatic views of network architecture.' A video of the talk is also available."

Google and the CIA? 234

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bobbing-for-scandal dept.
snottgoblin writes "DailyTech has an article suggesting that Google might be involved in a partnership with the CIA. The article also quotes a former CIA officer that Google's refusal to comply with the DOJ over privacy issues was 'a little hypocritical [...] because they were heavily in bed with the Central Intelligence Agency.'" Because I'm sure no one would go on the air and try to drum up a scandal aimed at the biggest target they can find.

OpenSSL Hit by Forgery Bug 69

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the fast-fixes dept.
Daniel Cray writes to tell us ZDNet is reporting that OpenSSL versions up to 0.9.7j and 0.9.8b are vulnerable to a signature forgery technique. OpenSSL has already released an update fixing the problem. From the article: "The flaw only affects a particular type of signature — PKCS #1 v1.5 signatures — but these are used by some certificate authorities... The signature forgery technique was first demonstrated last month at the Crypto 2006 conference by Daniel Bleichenbacher, a cryptographer with Bell Labs, according to security firm Netcraft. OpenSSL credited Google Security with successfully forging various certificates and providing the fix."

Original Star Wars on DVD... Sorta 455

Posted by CmdrTaco from the well-thats-just-a-let-down dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Original Star Wars is available on DVD. Sure it's more moola in Lucas's pocketsess (Gollum accent). But he did finally release the original version for a limited time. But which Original Star Wars, I bet Episode IV is in the opening titles. " Also apparently the original versions are basically non-anamorphic transfers from the laser discs. So basically, they look terrible.

Death by Google Calendar 101

Posted by Hemos from the Dial-G-for-Murder dept.
the_harlequin writes "Ok, so the title is a little extreme, but it's a possibility. The link gives an example of how easy it is to obtain information about someone who uses Google Calendar, and is unaware of what they're allowing the world to see."

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