Dave the Inverted - Slashdot User

Submission + - Dell's daylight robbery | APC Magazine

Submitted by Watertowers on Sunday February 25, 2007 @07:55PM

Watertowers writes: http://www.apcmag.com.au/5401/dells_daylight_robbe ry Yet another case of a big company doing the wrong thing by its customers. A laptop is purchased with an insurance agreement for theft, then when the laptop is stolen from under the customers hands (literally) Dell refuses to pay up.

Submission + - SWIFT applies for Safe Harbor Protections

Submitted by KDR_11k on Sunday February 25, 2007 @03:42AM

KDR_11k writes: The Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT, the system used for all international bank transfers) is now applying for Safe Harbor protections in the US following a dispute with the EU over handing data to US authorities (of course with subpoenas). EU data protection laws don't allow giving peronal information to other entities without the consent of the person the information is about which already caused the dispute over handing passenger data to US authorities. SWIFT hopes that with these Safe Harbor protections they will no longer be forced to give up information they aren't allowed to but Safe Harbor does not apply to banking organizations. Now it depends on whether SWIFT is a banking institution (they claim they aren't) and whether they are a data processor or controller (they claim the former, apparently data protection laws only apply to the latter).

The EU's proposed solution is that SWIFT should abandon its US data center to bring its data out of range of US officials.

Submission + - Xbox Live Marketplace Digital Rights MISManagement

Submitted by

Divalent

on Sunday February 25, 2007 @03:38AM

Divalent writes: "For over fourteen months, Microsoft has been aware of a problem that is presented to a user if they attempt to play an XBL arcade game or a game with premium paid downloadable content on any other machine than the one it was originally downloaded on. (See forum thread begun on 12/18/05)

MS has not come forward and publicly acknowledged the problem. Their representatives on the forums have even gone so far as to say, despite it's frank illegality, that those that had consoles stolen or replaced, in or out of warranty, from retailers will not have the workaround solution applied to their accounts unless they have explicit proof of said replacement. This means if your box breaks out of warranty, you cannot simply trash it and head to a store and buy a new one. You must somehow show continuity and PROVE to Microsoft that your old box is broken and has been replaced by the one you say it has been replaced by. Whatever happened to content being tied to your Gamertag, an ID that is uncopy-able and can only be logged onto one console at any one time? Where was the mention prior to launch of tying content to Gamertag AND the first console used to download the content before launch? That little detail wasn't even brought up until the Fall Update in October '06.

Currently there is a group of users who have had enough of this mismanagement of the growing segment of users with this problem. It is felt that Microsoft has its choice of a myriad of solutions such as Apples (de)authorizing protocol for iTunes. You can get a synopsis of the problem at Parallax Abstraction's blog on the matter here along with his recommendations of what to do. Included in the suggestions, whether you've personally been effected by the problem or not, is the urging to sign a petition that asks Microsoft to change the Digital Rights (Mis)Managment scheme currently in place."

Submission + - Researchers highlight a router route to pharming

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17, 2007 @07:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers highlight a router route to pharming http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/105032/researchers-hig hlight-a-router-route-to-pharming.html

Submission + - MPAA Steals Code, Violates Linkware License

Submitted by stedo on Saturday February 17, 2007 @07:43PM

stedo writes: A blogger who wrote his own blogging engine called Forest Blog recently noticed that none other than the MPAA was using his work, and had completely violated his linkware license by removing all links back to the Forest Blog site, and had not credited him in any way.

Submission + - Classical Music Hoax of the Century?

Submitted by

Retrospeak

on Saturday February 17, 2007 @01:39PM

Retrospeak writes: "The CD recordings of Joyce Hatto, a concert pianist often described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of" and praised by one critic as performing "the most extraordinary recordings I have ever heard" has come under a cloud of musical suspicion, as reported in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/arts/music/17ha tt.html?th&emc=th). Seems that many the Hatto recordings are digitally identical to those of a variety of other classical performers, some relatively obscure and some more famous. Because of the growing storm of sonic controversy, the British audiophile magazine "Gramophone" requested the folks at Pristine Classical to subject some of the tracks in question to detailed digital scrutiny and the results are very interesting (http://www.pristineclassical.com/HattoHoax.html)."

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