Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Image

Verizon Sued After Tech Punches Customer In Face Screenshot-sm 493

Posted by samzenpus from the can-you-hit-me-now dept.
suraj.sun writes "A Verizon customer filed a lawsuit after the tech the company sent out got a little punchy. Instead of fixing the customer's problem, the tech allegedly hit him in the face. The New York Post says the tech attacked the customer after he asked to see some ID before allowing access to the apartment. From the article, '"You want to know my name? Here's my name," Benjamin snarled, slapping his ID card into Isakson's face, according to Isakson's account of the December 2008 confrontation. "The guy essentially snapped. He cold-cocked me, hit me two or three solid shots to the head while my hands were down," said Isakson, a limo driver. He said the pounding bloodied his face and broke his glasses. But things got uglier, Isakson said, when Benjamin squeezed him around the neck and pressed him up against the wall. "He's prepared to kill me," Isakson said. "That's all I could think of." The customer broke free and ran away. The Verizon tech then chased the customer until he was subdued by a neighbor who was an off-duty cop.'"
Communications

Illinois Bans Social Network Use By Sex Offenders 587

Posted by timothy from the good-feel-measure-vs.-bad-feel-felons dept.
RobotsDinner writes "Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has signed into law a bill that bans all registered sex offenders from using social networks. '"Obviously, the Internet has been more and more a mechanism for predators to reach out," said Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington), a sponsor of the measure and a governor candidate. "The idea was, if the predator is supposed to be a registered sex offender, they should keep their Internet distance as well as their physical distance."'"
The Internet

EU Publishers Want a Law To Control Online News 168

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the protect-yourself-right-out-of-the-market dept.
suraj.sun writes with news that European publishers are also seeking ways to "protect" their content from the big bad intertubes. Their rant, termed the "Hamburg Declaration," asks the government to step in with a legislative fix. "Most of the statements in the relatively short declaration, which will surely take its place among thousands of other European declarations on intellectual property and other matters that have come out over the past few years, hinge on the idea that 'universal access to news' does not equal 'free.' In this respect, the publishers want to maintain the democratic ideal of a 'fourth estate' that provides news to an informed citizenry, while simultaneously restricting access to that news to those who can pay for it directly. What sets this declaration apart from the other Hamburg declarations out there, or from the various Geneva declarations or Berlin declarations, is that this one is intended to give the publishers' favorite solution to the news-stealing problem, the Automated Content Access Protocol, the force of law."
Privacy

UK Gov't May Track All Facebook Traffic 204

Posted by timothy from the posted-before-curfew dept.
Jack Spine writes "The UK government, which is becoming increasingly Orwellian, has said that it is considering snooping on all social networking traffic including Facebook, MySpace, and bebo. This supposedly anti-terrorist measure may be proposed as part of the Intercept Modernisation Programme according to minister Vernon Coaker, and is exactly the sort of deep packet inspection web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee warned about last week. The measure would get around the inconvenience for the government of not being able to snoop on all UK web traffic."
Patents

Lawmakers Take Another Shot At Patent Reform 154

Posted by timothy from the but-I-thought-of-it-first dept.
narramissic writes "Patent reform legislation was introduced yesterday (PDF), which, if it passes, would be the first major overhaul of US patent law in more than 50 years. (It should be noted that the new legislation is very similar to the Patent Reform Act of 2007, which died on the Senate floor last year.) The legislation would bring US patent law in line with global laws, and introduce 'reasonable royalty' provisions, which change the way damages are calculated and would reduce the likelihood of massive payouts for some patent holders. Representatives from Google, HP and Intel were quick to say that the changes would cut down on frivolous patent lawsuits. But the Innovation Alliance, a group representing patent-holders that oppose the legislation, said that it would 'devalue all patents, invite infringement — including from companies in China, India and other countries — and generate more litigation that will further strain the courts.'"
Image

Dutch City Fears Loss of Pornography Archive Screenshot-sm 61

Posted by samzenpus from the oh-the-humnaity dept.
The Dutch city of Leeuwarden has lost the municipal pornography archive and officials fear it may be gone forever. A spokesman for the city said the collection may have been taken home "accidentally" by an employee or visitor. "We're hoping that someone will say 'Hey, I have that in my attic' and bring it back," he said Thursday. "No questions asked." Leeuwarden shouldn't be too upset. I've found it a good practice to get rid of your porn archive and rebuild every 6 months or so.
The Internet

New Tool Promises To Passively ldentify BitTorrent Files 265

Posted by timothy from the checks-for-the-evil-bit dept.
QuietR10t writes "A new technique has been developed for detecting and tracking illegal content transferred using the BitTorrent file-trading protocol. According to its creators, the approach can monitor networks without interrupting the flow of data and provides investigators with hard evidence of illicit file transfers. 'Our system differs in that it is completely passive, meaning that it does not change any information entering or leaving a network,' says Schrader." I wonder if it can specifically identify legal content, too.
Image

Slashdot's Disagree Mail Screenshot-sm 135

Posted by samzenpus from the they-keep-coming dept.
This installment of Disagree Mail highlights a man's concern about illegal cloning in the Hollywood community, a guy who is sick of US imperialism and his low karma, and an example of the kind of people you don't want as roommates in college. Read below to find out just how crazy, angry and irresponsible it gets.

Press Favored Obama Throughout Campaign 1601

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the kudos-for-owning-up-to-it dept.
narcberry writes "After complaints of one-sided reporting, the Washington Post checked their own articles and agreed. Obama was clearly favored, throughout his campaign, in terms of more favorable articles, less criticism, better page real-estate, more pictures, and total disregard for problems such as his drug use. 'Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics. The number of Obama stories since Nov. 11 was 946, compared with McCain's 786. Both had hard-fought primary campaigns, but Obama's battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton was longer, and the numbers reflect that. McCain clinched the GOP nomination on March 4, three months before Obama won his. From June 4 to Election Day, the tally was Obama, 626 stories, and McCain, 584. Obama was on the front page 176 times, McCain, 144 times; 41 stories featured both.'"
Image

Slashdot's Disagree Mail Screenshot-sm 126

Posted by samzenpus from the keep-trying dept.
Usually persistence is an admirable quality. There comes a time however when you reach that fine line between endeavoring to persevere, and drunk dialing your ex-girlfriend. The mail this week is from people who don't know when to say when. You have to admire their determination and feel a little bit bad that they don't have anything else to do. Read below to see how many times someone can click send in a day.

Comment Re:Disconnect (Score 2, Informative) 547

by adam613 (#25617443) Attached to: Air Force To Rewrite the Rules of the Internet

Pretty much, yes. I had several friends from college who went to work for government contractors on projects that required security clearance. The way they explained it, if I figure out on my own what they're working on, that's legal even if it is classified. What would be illegal is if they told me or gave me direct access to classified information about what they were working on.

(Also, in a lot of cases, what they were building wasn't classified, but who they were building it for was.)

Slashdot Top Deals

Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations"

Close