daveschroeder - Slashdot User

Submission + - New report on NSA released today

Submitted by

daveschroeder

on Friday November 14, 2008 @10:12AM

daveschroeder writes: "George Washington University has today released a three volume history of its activities during the Cold War. Written by agency historian Thomas R. Johnson, the 1000-page report, "Cryptology during the Cold War, 1945-1989", details some of the agency's successes and failures, its conflict with other intelligence agencies, and the questionable legal ground on which early American cryptologists worked. The report remained classified for years, until Johnson mentioned it to Matthew Aid, an intelligence historian, at an intelligence conference. Aid and the George Washington University's National Security Archive joined forces to obtain the report — intended for internal agency consumption only — from the NSA. Two years later, an abstract and the three current volumes of the report are now available via the George Washington University National Security Archive in PDF format. Aid, a National Security Archive visiting fellow Matthew and author of the forthcoming history "The Secret Sentry: The Top Secret History of the National Security Agency", says Johnson's study shows "refreshing openness and honesty, acknowledging both the NSA's impressive successes and abject failures during the Cold War." A fourth volume remains classified."

Submission + - Insurrection Act back to the way it was in 1807 1

Submitted by

daveschroeder

on Thursday April 03, 2008 @07:00PM

daveschroeder writes: "Back in 2006, there was much controversy about changes to the Insurrection Act of 1807 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, giving the President additional specific abilities to deploy federal or state national guard troops within the United States during major public emergency situations. Some interpreted this as discarding the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, when the text of Posse Comitatus always contained an explicit exemption for "Act[s] of Congress", and the Insurrection Act had allowed the deployment of troops within the US by the President in certain exigent circumstances for two centuries. Nevertheless, the changes were met with criticism and misunderstanding. In any event, the changes have been repealed in their entirety several months ago, in Section 1068 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008. This brings the text of all sections back to their original 1807 wording. There was a great deal of coverage about these changes when they occurred. Why is there not a similar level of coverage of the repeal, even months later?"

Submission + - Iran may shut down internet during election (iht.com) 1

Submitted by

daveschroeder

on Tuesday March 04, 2008 @09:51AM

daveschroeder writes: "The Iranian government might block private access to the Internet for the general legislative election on March 14, two Iranian news outlets reported Monday. In 2006, the authorities banned download speeds on private computers faster than 128 kilobytes per second. The government also uses sophisticated filtering equipment to block hundreds of Web sites and blogs that it considers religiously or politically inappropriate. Many bloggers have been jailed in the past years, and dozens of Web sites have been shut down. It would appear that Iran's own government is more a threat to the nation's internet connectivity than the fragility of the undersea cable network. (Slashdot readers may recall assertions, dismissed by undersea cable experts, that the cable cuts were a deliberate attempt to sever Iran's connectivity, which, contrary to popular belief, also never happened.)"

Submission + - Apple issues warning on iPhone unlocking

Submitted by

daveschroeder

on Monday September 24, 2007 @08:34PM

daveschroeder writes: "Today Apple issued a statement which says, "Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed." This does not include "hacking" the phone to install third party applications or ringtones, only unlocking the phone. This is because unlocking changes the baseband radio firmware, which is expected to be updated along with the next iPhone update to address other issues. Apple adds, "This has nothing to do with proactively disabling a phone that is unlocked or hacked. It's unfortunate that some of these programs have caused damage to the iPhone software, but Apple cannot be responsible for...those consequences." While unlocking a phone is legal for an end user under a current DMCA exemption, the vendor is under no obligation to guarantee the phone will remain as such when official software updates are applied; many users of unlocked handsets simply never update the phone, but the iPhone is in a different category. It is likely that since the current unlocking mechanisms use a broader buffer overflow condition, this will also be fixed in the next software update.

Note to editors: the already-submitted story in the firehose is remarkably incorrect (has NOTHING to do with "hacking", just unlocking), so please don't accept it."

Submission + - iPhones not flooding wireless LAN at Duke

Submitted by

Dave Schroeder

on Saturday July 21, 2007 @08:22AM

Dave Schroeder writes: "On the heels of the recent story about iPhones flooding the wireless LAN at Duke, it has been determined that it wasn't iPhones at all. Duke has issued a statement explaining that the issue was a Cisco-based network issue, for which Cisco has provided a fix. MacDailyNews has more coverage and commentary, asking, "So, does Duke University owe Apple recompense for hundreds of damaging articles that blamed Apple's iPhone for Duke's Cisco problem?""

Submission + - Apple and AT&T announce iPhone service plans

Submitted by

daveschroeder

on Tuesday June 26, 2007 @09:23AM

daveschroeder writes: "Apple and AT&T today announced service plans for iPhone, 4 days before its release in the US at 6pm local time on Friday, June 29. The plans are $59.99/mo for 450 minutes, $79.99 for 900 minutes, and $99.99 for 1350 minutes, and all include unlimited data, 200 SMS messages, rollover minutes, and unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling. Any other standard AT&T service plan may also be used. A two year service plan is required, with a $175 cancellation fee if terminated early. In addition, activations are done via iTunes, so only the hardware is purchased in the store. Interestingly, activation of a contract via iTunes is required to enable the iPod/syncing functionality of the phone as well. (It will remain to be seen whether there are workarounds for this for those who only want the iPod functionality of iPhone, and whether the iPhone is easily unlockable for those who wish to try it on alternate carriers, and so on.)"

Submission + - Steve Jobs on DRM

Submitted by

das

on Tuesday February 06, 2007 @03:43PM

das writes: "Apple CEO Steve Jobs has posted his thoughts on music, DRM, and online media distribution as a whole. Jobs provides a brief history of the iTunes Music Store, some breakdowns of the origins of music on iPods, and some arguments why Apple had to deploy iTunes Music Store commercial content with DRM. Jobs then goes on to offer some alternatives for going forward. The option he seems to support is abolishing DRM entirely, saying, "Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat. [...] Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven't worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy. [...] [W]hat benefits do [music companies] get from selling [online] music encumbered with a DRM system? There appear to be none. [...] Convincing [a major music label] to to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly." It appears that Apple isn't interested in iTunes Music Store lock-in after all."

Submission + - FISA to govern wiretapping plan

Submitted by

das

on Wednesday January 17, 2007 @04:55PM

das writes: "The US Justice Department says it is granting the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, under FISA, authority to monitor the controversial domestic wiretapping program. "As a result of these orders, any electronic surveillance that was occurring as part of the Terrorist Surveillance Program will now be conducted subject to the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. [...] Accordingly, under these circumstances, the President has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote in the letter obtained by the Associated Press. All future requests will be routed through the FISA court, and the administration says it already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to a terrorist group."

Submission + - Month of Apple Fixes

Submitted by

das

on Tuesday January 02, 2007 @03:41PM

das writes: "On the same day as the launch of the Month of Apple Bugs (MOAB) (blog), Landon Fuller, a programmer, Darwin developer, and former engineer in Apple's BSD Technology Group, has launched an effort to provide runtime fixes for each MOAB issue as they are released. A fix has already been posted for the first issue. Additionally, security researcher and MOAB co-presenter Kevin Finisterre of Digital Munition has further outlined some of the motivations for MOAB. Perhaps a good name for the runtime fix project might be be the Month of Apple Fixes?"

Submission + - Intel-based Xserve now available

Submitted by

daveschroeder

on Wednesday October 25, 2006 @09:52AM

daveschroeder writes: "The Intel-based Xserve is now available for order and configuration on the Apple Store for retail and education/federal buyers. This quad-Xeon based 1U server features two dual-core Xeon 5100 Series processors at up to 3GHz, up to 32GB ECC RAM, up to 2.25TB internal SATA (or SAS) storage, dual GigE, dual 8-lane PCIe (one PCI-X), FireWire 400 and 800, USB 2.0, DB-9 serial, optional dual power supplies, and standard integrated graphics. The new Xserve starts at $2999 retail or $2699 education/government."

Submission + - Apple unveils MacBook Pro with Core 2 Duo

Submitted by

daveschroeder

on Tuesday October 24, 2006 @09:23AM

daveschroeder writes: "Apple has just announced the upgraded MacBook Pro (15.4- and 17-inch models) with the Intel Core 2 Duo ("Conroe") 64-bit dual core processor. The standard hard drive sizes have been increased, a FireWire 800 port has been added to all models (again, reaffirming that FireWire, and specifically FireWire 800, is not dead, and that Apple responded to customer requests to add it to the 15.4-inch model), and the optical drive is now dual-layer-write-capable on all models. For detailed specs, see this page."

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