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Privacy

Submission + - Getting out

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The United States of America as well as several other countries claimed to be the "most free" of countries have recently been imposing draconian legislation- some would say Fascist or Orwellian. If the trend continues, some people will be looking to get out of the country to keep their privacy and freedom. That leaves a question- where should they go?
Programming

Submission + - How to get accurate specs?

Submitted by
spiffcow
spiffcow writes: "So here's my story... I'm the only programmer at a language interpretation company. I design internal software for users are largely computer-illiterate, and obtaining accurate specs for these programs has become a huge challenge. In the most recent instance, I asked for detailed specs on what an accounting program should do (i.e. accounting rules, calculation methods, etc.), and received a Word document mockup of an input screen, complete with stickers of cartoon monkeys. This seems to be the norm around here. When I asked my boss (the head Sales manager) for specs, he responded saying that it was my responsibility to determine what was needed. So my question is this: how do I convey to the users that, in order to develop the software they want, I need detailed, accurate specs. Oh, and as a side note, how do I explain to people that the title "Software developer" does not entail providing technical support for the copy machine?"
Music

Submission + - BMI madness

Submitted by Dishwasha
Dishwasha writes: I have several customers that have recently received a notice from the Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) that they were in violation of the music rights which BMI owns. They were sited that they had "Music on Hold; TVs in Public Waiting Rooms, in Therapy Sessions, In Fitness Centers, in Operating Rooms, and in Patient Rooms." Apparently none of these applied except for having a TV in waiting rooms and patient rooms. BMI is demanding my customers to sign an agreement for a "Health Care Multiple Use License". More recently one of my customers is a hospital in a town consisting of a population of less than 800 and they have been directly invoiced by the BMI for the use of TVs in public waiting areas.

Is there any legal advice, articles, or documentation the community can offer me that I can share with my customers? Does BMI hold any legal right to claim fees on publicly broadcasted material that is receiving royalties through advertisement that is not being charged by the accused to their customers nor directly generating any revenue or profit, but is simply accessed via a common device used to gain access to public services (i.e. Broadcasted Television) and not being duplicated in any illegal fashion?
Encryption

Submission + - Secure private key storage for UNIX?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft Windows, from 2000 forwards (except ME) offers secure certificate and private storage at the OS level in what is called a protected store. Offline, its encrypted by a combination of the user's password and a session key stored on the filesystem. When the OS is running, the private keys stored are available to the logged in user, optionally encrypted with another password. The keys are stored in protected memory, so no applications can access them without going through the Microsoft CAPI calls. This code also is FIPS 140-1 level 1 (the best one can get for software cryptography modules) compliant.

This functionality (especially certified FIPS 140-1 or FIPS 140-2) would be nice to see in UNIX variants. MacOS's keychain functionality is similar, but stores at the application level, and is not FIPS compliant. An implementation of the protected store functionality will allow applications like Firefox, Thunderbird and gpg to have one common place to obtain private keys and certificates rather than maintaining their own individual keystores. An additional application for this would be the ability to use hardware PKCS #11 tokens.

I am wondering why this functionality does not exist at the OS level in most OSes except Windows. A number of applications on many platforms have this functionality, but its at the app level, with their own keystores, and not a standard at the OS level.
Editorial

Submission + - How to find a job?

Submitted by
boxxa
boxxa writes: "My graduation is approaching soon and I have begun the job search that many students go into. Since I wish to get out of the area where I am currently in school, the job hunt has gone online. My question is what type of jobs are posted online? My resume is on Monster.com and I carry quite a background with expierence in networking which is the career path I have chosen, but all the calls I seem to get are low level tech and PC jobs. Has anyone else experienced this? Is Monster.com and other sites like Yahoo! Jobs mostly recruiters and other low level postings for the lazy person to find while the larger companies in the US are waiting for people to find their postings in different places? Lastly, what other alternatives are there to finding jobs around the US?"
Linux Business

Submission + - Samba Success in the Enterprise?

Submitted by
gunnk
gunnk writes: "We've deployed a Samba server here to replace some aging Novell Netware boxes. It works great: fast, secure, stable. However, we have one VIP that feels that Samba is "amateur" software and that we should be buying Windows servers. I've been searching with little success for large Samba deployments in enterprise environments. Anyone out there care to share stories of places that are happily running large Samba installations for their file servers? Or not so happy, for that matter — better to be informed!"
Windows

Submission + - Vista's RAM sweet spot: 4GB

Submitted by jcatcw
jcatcw writes: David Short, an IBM consultant who works in the Global Services Divison and has been beta testing Vista for two years, says users should consider 4GB of RAM if they really want optimum Vista performance. With Vista's minimum requirement of 512MB of RAM, Vista will deliver performance that's 'sub-XP,' he says. (Dell and others recommend 2GB.) One reason: SuperFetch, which fetches applications and data, and feeds them into RAM to make them accessible more quickly. With more RAM, there's more caching.

Feed Feds Pull Traveler Help Site (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Homeland Security pulls down a website link for travelers with watchlist problems after 27BStroke6 points out security flaws. But TSA won't say whether the site was legal. In 27B Stroke 6.


GNOME

Submission + - Linus fires latest shot in GNOME Wars

Submitted by HellFeuer
HellFeuer writes: Linus speaks out against GNOME again. When challenged to use GNOME for a month, he submitted patches to the GNOME project to prove his criticism is *constructive*, saying "The code is actually _cleaner_ after my patches, and the end result is more capable. We'll see what happens". However, he still didn't commit to actually using GNOME.
Where do you stand on Linus vs GNOME?
GNOME

Submission + - Linus calls GNOME "limiting"

Submitted by
lisah
lisah writes: "The flame wars between Linus Torvalds and the GNOME community continue to burn. Responding to Torvalds' recent claim that GNOME 'seems to be developed by interface Nazis' and that its developers believe their 'users are idiots,' a member of the Linux Foundation's Desktop Architects mailing list suggested that Torvalds use GNOME for a month before making such pronouncements. Torvalds, never one to back down from a challenge, simply turned around and submitted patches to GNOME and then told the list, '...let's see what happens to my patches. I guarantee you that they actually improve the code.' After lobbing that over the fence, Torvalds concluded his comments by saying, 'Now the question is, will people take the patches, or will they keep their heads up their arses and claim that configurability is bad, even when it makes things more logical, and code more readable.'"
Programming

Submission + - What does good ajax code look like?

Submitted by b0wl0fud0n
b0wl0fud0n writes: I've been browsing through the web to look up good coding standards and guidelines for ajax, but I've been cluttered with returns of basic tutorials and examples. Enough with basic tutorials, where can I go to find in depth resources for large ajax web application development?
Space

Submission + - End of the World? Nah,.Only 3 Football Fields Wide

Submitted by
j2xs
j2xs writes: "So a funny thing happened today as I was checking my web stats report. This company was surfing DataRush, so naturally I went out to take a look at 'em... then I found this quote regarding what the world can expect in 2036. Heck, forget that! Look what happens seven years earlier!

"Some believe that all of this is science fiction," Ailor stated, "but we know that an asteroid (Apophis) 300 meters in diameter, large enough to cause serious damage, will pass within 20,000 miles of Earth — closer than our weather satellites — in 2029, and an impact by the same asteroid in 2036 cannot be ruled out. This conference will help improve our readiness should we need to defend our planet in the future."

I for one, am hereby donating my software to the effort !! Hey Aerospace Corporate guy, uhhh, just TAKE the darn software and start modeling its trajectory!!
[nervous laugh turning to whimper...as the screen fades to black]"
Classic Games (Games)

Submission + - Best games of the previous generation?

Submitted by Hatta
Hatta writes: I'm an avid gamer, but the hot new games never appealed to me. In fact, I'm perpetually a generation behind. I figure that games don't get any less fun because they're old. So with the recent release of the xbox 360, PS3, and Wii, it's about time for me to pick up a PS2 or XBOX. What games stand out as classics on each system? I'm particularly interested in RPGs, adventure games, platformers, and anything that's just too unique to miss.
Privacy

Submission + - Cops, FBI hates shared Wifi

Submitted by PhilipMarlowe9000
PhilipMarlowe9000 writes: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/02/10/AR2007021001457.html "We're not sure yet how to combat that," said Kevin R. West, a federal agent who oversees the computer crimes unit in North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation. "Free wireless spots are everywhere, and it makes it easy for people . . . to sit there and do their nefarious acts. The fear is that if we talk about it, people will learn about it and say, 'I can go to a parking lot, and no one will catch me.' But we need to talk about it so that we can figure out how to solve it."

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