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Censorship

Court Nixes National Security Letter Gag Provision 128

Posted by kdawson from the speak-we-will dept.
2phar sends news that on Monday a federal appeals court ruled unconstitutional the gag provision of the Patriot Act's National Security Letters. Until the ruling, recipients of NSLs were legally forbidden from speaking out. "The appeals court invalidated parts of the statute that wrongly placed the burden on NSL recipients to initiate judicial review of gag orders, holding that the government has the burden to go to court and justify silencing NSL recipients. The appeals court also invalidated parts of the statute that narrowly limited judicial review of the gag orders — provisions that required the courts to treat the government's claims about the need for secrecy as conclusive and required the courts to defer entirely to the executive branch." Update: 12/16 22:26 GMT by KD : Julian Sanchez, Washington Editor for Ars Technica, sent this cautionary note: "Both the item on yesterday's National Security Letter ruling and the RawStory article to which it links are somewhat misleading. It remains the case that ISPs served with an NSL are forbidden from speaking out; the difference is that under the ruling it will be somewhat easier for the ISPs to challenge that gag order, and the government will have to do a little bit more to persuade a court to maintain the gag when it is challenged. But despite what the ACLU's press releases imply, this is really not a 'victory' for them, or at least only a very minor one. Relative to the decision the government was appealing, it would make at least as much sense to call it a victory for the government. The lower court had struck down the NSL provisions of the PATRIOT Act entirely. This ruling left both the NSL statute and the gag order in place, but made oversight slightly stricter. If you look back at the hearings from this summer, you'll see that most of the new ruling involves the court making all the minor adjustments that the government had urged them to make, and which the ACLU had urged them to reject as inadequate."
Hardware Hacking

Photos of the Damage To the Large Hadron Collider 106

Posted by kdawson from the do-not-try-this-at-home dept.
holy_calamity writes "CERN have released images of the damage done to the world's most powerful machine, the Large Hadron Collider, when an electrical fault caused a helium leak. New Scientist has posted them, along with explanations of what you can see. The sudden burst of gas shifted some of the huge superconducting magnets by half a meter, causing at least $21 million in damage."
Security

Submission + - China hackers attack France for meeting Dalai Lama (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by
zeronode
zeronode writes: "It seems that China is getting miffed at France's President Nicolas Sarkozy for meeting with the Dalai Lama. "The authorities in Beijing issued a stern denunciation of the meeting last week, cancelled an EU-China summit and said trade with France might suffer. A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry rejected any suggestion that the Chinese government might approve of the cyber-attack, reported to have made the embassy's website inaccessible for several days.""
Operating Systems

Submission + - Linux replacing Active Directory, but with AD UI? 2

Submitted by
Voyager529
Voyager529 writes: "In about three weeks, I graduate with a BS in Information Technology. The curriculum is largely Windows based. In the token Linux class I did take, my professor spent half the time talking about Roman coins, and the time that we did spend in Linux, we spent using the cat and ls commands, along with other simple scripting issues. These things are useful no doubt, but it seems to be a case of putting the cart before the horse.



Being as most of the system administration stuff I learned on Windows Server and Novell. I would like to learn more about how to administer a LAN using a Linux system as opposed to Windows Server. I tried using SuSe Enterprise Server in a virtual machine at one point. DHCP, DNS, and the like were pretty easy to pick up. The issue I ran into was trying to do the things that are done in Active Directory on the Windows side.



I know that this is slashdot, and all the purists will tell me that I should learn to do all of this on a command line and whatnot, and I don't entirely disagree with you. I just want a place to start. Is there a Linux distro that *gasp* emulates the interface of Windows Server to a sufficient extent that I wouldn't be completely lost in?



Thank you in advance!"
Robotics

Killer Military Robot Arms Race Underway? 332

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the skynet-unavailable-for-comment dept.
coondoggie writes to tell us NetworkWorld is reporting that one researcher seems to think that a military robot arms race may be imminent between both governments and terrorists. "We are beginning to see the first steps towards an international robot arms race and it may not be long before robots become a standard terrorist weapon to replace the suicide bomber, according to professor Noel Sharkey, from the Royal United Services Institute Department of Computer Science. [...] Currently there is always a human in the loop to decide on the use of lethal force. However, this is set to change with the US giving priority to autonomous weapons - robots that will decide on where, when and who to kill, according to the professor."
Government

Submission + - UK Could Ban Pirates from Using the Internet (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry wants the UK — and probably everyone else in the planet — to follow France's President Nicolas Sarkozy example and ban everyone who uses the Intertubes to share copyrighted files. The plan will force ISPs to cut service if they catch you downloading copyrighted material three times. A spokesman from the Phonographic Inquisition said that it's the only "real deterrent" to stop people from becoming criminals beyond their preferred option, which probably includes the word "Siberia" and "Gulag." But is it really a good strategy? Would the idea of being banned from the Internet stop you from sharing copyrighted movies and music?
User Journal

Journal Journal: Cockblocked by a nice surprise

Journal by sm62704

I figured out why my slashdot karma's so good, always at "excellent" - I can't get laid. I can't even get any from hookers. So my self esteem has been in the shitter, and I've had a bad case of the blues.
Communications

Submission + - Why you haven't heard of cell phone repeaters

Submitted by
SinaK
SinaK writes: "Millions of people in the US have poor cell phone reception, whether because they are too far from a cell tower, or due to interference effects. A simple solution has existed for quite some time: cell phone repeaters. But most consumers haven't heard of them simply because current FCC regulations prevent networks from selling cell repeaters directly to customers."

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