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Enlightenment

Submission + - Pseudoscience winning weblog award (scienceblogs.com) 1

Submitted by OneMHz
OneMHz writes: A pseudoscience climate change denialist blog is currently winning the science weblog award. Why? Because conservative websites are encouraging people to go vote for it, whether they read it or not. Their strongest competitor, Bad Astronomy, needs help. I encourage people to go read it, then vote for it. They've embedded the science poll in the page, so you can vote there, or here. It's a sad day when pseudoscience wins over real sience...
Communications

Submission + - Why Everyone Should Hate Cellphone Carriers (wired.com) 2

Submitted by
The Byelorrusian Spamtrap
The Byelorrusian Spamtrap writes: "Wired Magazine's made its position clear on the state of play in America's cellular industry, delivering a long, satisfying screed on why all of us should stop complaining and do something about it. Legislation is under consideration in congress to heavily regulate carriers, and it wants you to support it: contact your critter today!"
Media

Submission + - NBC Chief, "Apple 'destroyed' music pricing (appleinsider.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: With the most colorful description yet, NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker on Sunday urged colleagues to take a stand against Apple's iTunes, charging that the digital download service was undermining the ability of traditional media companies to set profitable rates for their content online.

"We know that Apple has destroyed the music business — in terms of pricing — and if we don't take control, they'll do the same thing on the video side,"
Security

Submission + - All browsers vulnerable to DNS Rebinding 1

Submitted by
getOpera
getOpera writes: "DNS rebinding was discovered in 1996 and affected the Java Virtual Machine. Recently a group of researchers at Stanford found out that this vulnerability is still present in browsers and that the common solution, known as DNS pinning, is not effective anymore. Securityfocus tracked down one of the authors of the study, Adam Barth, to learn about the impact of the problem, which workarounds can be deployed right now, and how to protect browsers from DNS rebinding attacks in the long run. You can use the online test to check your software."
Math

Submission + - Wolfram awards $25,000 for flawed proof

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot readers will have seen an announcement by Stephen Wolfram offering a $25,000 prize for a proof or a disproof that a certain 2-state, 3-color Turing machine is universal. The prize was awarded on October 24th, 2007 to Alex Smith of Birmingham, UK.

However, according to discussion in the Foundation of Mathematics e-mail list, archives of which are available here, the members of the prize committee were "informed but not polled" as to the validity of the proof. The prize committee members were Lenore Blum, Greg Chaitin, Martin Davis, Ron Graham, Yuri Matiyasevich, Marvin Minsky, Dana Scott and Stephen Wolfram. On October 26, Martin Davis wrote to the FOM list that "The determination that Smith's proof is correct seems to have been made entirely by the Wolfram organization. My understanding is that the I/O involves complex encodings."

On October 29th, Stanford computer scientist Vaughan Pratt wrote to the Foundations of Mathematics list that the universality proof of the (2,3) Turing machine was flawed, asking "How did an argument containing such an elementary fallacy get through the filter?" Pratt points out that the fallacy of the proof could be used to "prove" the erroneous statement that a linear bounded automaton is universal. The text of Pratt's email is available here.
Intel

Submission + - Intel's 45nm patch machinery exposed (tweakers.net)

Submitted by
Roboticles
Roboticles writes: "Tweakers.net has paid a visit to Intel's laboratories in the Californian town of Folsom, the birthplace of the 45nm CPU. We spoke to lead architect Stephen Fisher about the development of the Penryn chip and the day the first A0 version arrived. We were shown the machinery used to test and patch the 45nm processor, which is currently being manufactured in Arizona for release next month."
Software

Submission + - SCO gets bankruptcy court approval to sell Unix (groklaw.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This seems just a little bit odd. SCO yesterday filed its Motion to Fix a Hearing Date and Shorten Time on its Emergency Motion for an Order (A) Approving Asset Purchase Agreement, (B) Establishing Sale and Bidding Procedures, and (C) Approving the Form and Manner of Notice of Sale. The Certificate of Service shows that it was served yesterday by "Overnight Delivery."

The judge already signed the Order today. So he signed it before anyone could carefully read it, let alone oppose it. Now, I freely confess that I'm not a specialist in this area, but perhaps any bankruptcy folks out there can tell us if that is normal. It certainly isn't in other civil courts. I guess Delaware got its friendly-to-corporations reputation for a reason.
The Internet

Submission + - Lawsuit in open-source tuning land (pgmfi.org) 1

Submitted by
David Blundell
David Blundell writes: "I owned and operated the largest online site dedicated to tuning and open-source solutions for engine management — chipping and tuning engine computers, basically. From May 2002 till the beginning of this year. Last year, I received a Cease and Desist notice (which was forwarded to the EFF, who were very helpful) for a matter involving a posting on the forum that was removed within 48 hours of telephonic notification. The company involved was pursuing the matter rather aggressively initially, but I thought the matter had been dropped earlier this year after I sold the site until I was surprised by a lawsuit last week.

If anyone is curious about the details of this mess and how it has been handled up to this point, go check out http://forum.pgmfi.org/viewtopic.php?p=95637 (don't worry — no registration required) — it's probably an hour read, but there is a timeline of events and all legal correspondence exchanged over this mess is available for your viewing pleasure.

I'm trying to spread awareness of this matter because I think it is important for forum operators everywhere to understand the risks involved with companies willing to aggressively protect their IP. Also, I think there are some rather novel (well, at least interesting?) issues here:

-The "software" in question here was a backdoor. An existing product's protocols were used in a manner that the original authors had not intended. A software license agreement forbidding reverse engineering may have been violated in the course of creating the "software." Who should be the target? Hosting provider or author? Limitations? At what point does a product that makes use of reverse-engineered protocols (something like Samba, for instance) become a violation of intellectual property?

-The company suing me presumably are laying claim to the code that the downloader can access as their intellectual property. This code was originally written by Honda, reverse engineered and presumably modified by Hondata, who are suing me. Honda could care less about the matter. Without any patents or copyrights, do Hondata have an intellectual property claim to code that they didn't exclusively write (merely modified) running on hardware they did not design, build or sell?

-What are the limits on the duty of care of a forum hosting provider? Moderator? Mere domain owner?

-Is this a case of a large, established commercial provider using strong-armed legal tactics to manipulate and push around an open-source project (and/or take over it, see demands in link), or were there more legitimate claims?

I'm hoping to receive some answers to these questions from an IP attorney, and I'll be sure to share as things progress.

Thanks for listening."
Censorship

Submission + - "Don't tase me bro" police cleared

Submitted by Fozzyuw
Fozzyuw writes: WFTV.com's website has news on the University of Florida police involved in the Andrew Meyer tasering have been cleared of using excessive force. It also includes a link to the full report, which shares details of the incident and events leading up to the incident.
Space

Submission + - China Launches first Moon Orbiter

Submitted by hey0you0guy
hey0you0guy writes: China has launched its first lunar orbiter, on a planned year-long exploration mission to the Moon. Analysts say it is a key step towards China's aim of putting a man on the Moon by 2020, in the latest stage of an Asian space race with Japan and India. Earlier this month, a Japanese lunar probe entered orbit around the Moon. India is planning a lunar mission for April next year.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Unlimited gall to cost Verizon $1 million (networkworld.com)

Submitted by netbuzz
netbuzz writes: Unlimited really means unlimited, even in advertising. So says the New York State Attorney General's Office in squeezing a $1 million settlement out of Verizon Wireless for disconnecting 13,000 of its customers who had the temerity to believe that the unlimited service they were promised came with unlimited service. Verizon's statement explaining the settlement is a gem, too.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20981
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Sorry Ninjas, Pressure Points are Phony

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Weeks after the news that it doesn't matter where you stick acupuncture needles, Wired Science has challenged the timeless ninja skill of pressure point fighting. When martial artists show off their fancy skills, they usually work with compliant subjects. During pressure point demonstrations, they build up to the finale of knocking people out with mind waves and gentle slaps after several hours of conditioning. The underlying principle at work during a pressure point lesson is the power of suggestion rather than causing an overload to the nervous system or using a jedi mind trick. Faith healers do the same thing. Even Borat played along.
Networking

Submission + - Comcast blocking www.google.com? 1

Submitted by nate.sammons
nate.sammons writes: Several times in the last few days, my comcast line has given me a "Connection reset" error when connecting to www.google.com. Now, every other site I've tried works, including mail.google.com, news.google.com, etc. However, any attempt to connect to www.google.com gets me a connection reset error. When this happened the other day, it eventually just went away. So-far tonight it's been about two hours.

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