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The Courts

Submission + - RIAA's Sherman Attacks NewYorkCountryLawyer 4

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "When questioned by a journalist on the viability of the RIAA's "making available" theory of copyright law, Cary Sherman, the organization's Chairman and CEO, responded by saying "It basically comes down to, who ya gonna believe, Ray Beckerman, or the Register of Copyrights?". Beckerman (alias NewYorkCountryLawyer on Slashdot) replied on his blog "I'm sure my readers know what the correct answer to the question is. Question: Who are you going to believe, Ray Beckerman, or the Register of Copyrights? Answer: Neither. I'm going to read the statute and believe what the statute says"."
Communications

Submission + - kuro5hin DOS attack

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Over the weekend, the Kuro5hin diary section has been subject to extensive crapflooding and page widening. Speculation focuses on either disgruntled former users or a mentally ill Canadian hacker. K5 admins are aware of the DOS crapflood, but have done little to stop it.
The Matrix

Submission + - Vote on `.xxx' Internet Address Nears

Submitted by BOOM~
BOOM~ writes: Online pornographers and religious groups are in a rare alliance as a key Internet oversight agency nears a decision on creating a virtual red-light district through a ".xxx" Internet address. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which has already rejected similar proposals twice since 2000, planned to vote as early as next week on whether to approve the domain name for voluntary use by porn sites.
Spam

Submission + - Spammer that sued Spamhaus now sued for spamming

Submitted by Dave Q. Lintard
Dave Q. Lintard writes: e360 Insight, the Illinois-based mass mailer suing Spamhaus for calling it a spammer, is being sued in California for spamming. David Linhardt, individually, and his firm e360 Insight are among the defendants in a lawsuit brought by William Silverstein, an aggrieved spam recipient. Bargaindepot.net, a firm which shares offices with e360 Insight, is also named in the suit.
The Courts

Submission + - Hans Reiser stands trial for murder, no bail money

Submitted by
mtaht
mtaht writes: "Announced today: Hans Reiser to stand trial for murder. He's too broke to make bail, so will remain in jail (hopefully doing something productive) until the jury trial starts May 7th.

To me, the evidence — with one notable exception — seems far more flimsy than in the OJ Simpson case. Trace samples of blood in the home? How many times have you bled in your house over the last 4 years? If your wife had gone missing, and you knew from watching hundreds of tv shows who was usually investigated — wouldn't a normal person (geek) that otherwise had had no encounter with the law previously — buy a book or two on the subject? (admittedly, pre-patriot act, I'd have got mine from the library). If innocent, would you get annoyed at being trailed everywhere and start playing games with the cops? Since when did washing your car "frequently" become evidence of a crime?

Still... what did you do with the damn car seat, Hans?"
Networking

Submission + - The illusion of 'net neutrality'

Submitted by frdmfghtr
frdmfghtr writes: IHT is running an opinion piece on 'net neutrality.' Christopher Wolf writes about the harm of net neutrality legislation, ending with:

The astonishing growth of the Internet has been due to a "hands off" policy, with the marketplace and existing laws creating the parameters rather than rigid regulatory edicts whose adverse side-effects could well be severe. Let's hope lawmakers and policymakers keep that in mind.
Media

Submission + - New info on CD lifetimes

Submitted by
Jeff1946
Jeff1946 writes: "One of the science fair entries I judged this week was on the use of CDs to archive data and the expected lifetime. The students did accelerated lifetime testing at 80C to determine the failure rate of the cyanine dye on which is written the data. They didn't have enough time at 80C to detect any failures. Of more interest to me and /. folks is conversations they had with people at NIST and the Library of Congress. The students learned that CDs lifetimes have greatly improved due to metal stabilizers being added to the dye and it is now reasonible to expect no degradation for at least 50 years if the CD is kept at room temperature away from bright light. They also were told that DVD-Rs are much more prone to degradation. Another tidbit they learned was the least reliable part of a CD is near the outer edge due to the fact that the dye is spun onto the CD and may not coat it as well there. My take away from this is that is probably a good idea to copy any older CDs with valuable data to new ones."
Space

Submission + - Mars Rover Churns Up Yellow Soil

Submitted by
SeaDour
SeaDour writes: "Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are taking a closer look at images sent back by the Mars rover Spirit nearly a year ago, showing bright yellow soil that had been churned up by the rover's wheels. The soil appears to contain high concentrations of sulfur as well as traces of water. "This material could have been left behind by water that dissolved these minerals underground, then came to the surface and evaporated, or it could be a volcanic deposit formed around ancient gas vents," said Dr. Ray Arvidson. Researchers are planning to see if the soil turns up anywhere else in the area, potentially giving more clues as to its origin."
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - The Incredible Shrinking Engine

Submitted by Somnus
Somnus writes: In the latest issue of MIT's Technology Review , researchers describe how they can dramatically boost engine output and efficiency by preventing pre-ignition, or 'knock:'

... Both turbocharging and direct injection are preexisting technologies, and neither looks particularly impressive ... by combining them, and augmenting them with a novel way to use a small amount of ethanol, Cohn and his colleagues have created a design that they believe could triple the power of a test engine ...
Why didn't I think of this?

Feed 'NSFW' Is for Babies (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Susie Bright calls internet writers to task for labeling links as not safe for work. Is it time to drop the flag? In Sex Drive Daily.


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