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Comment Some already do (Score 1) 486

I work at a decent sized regional ISP. If a customer is disrupting the network with blatantly viral traffic (like tens of thousands of simultaneous SMTP connections) we shut them off and have tech support walk them through disinfecting their PC. The exception is if they also have VOIP through us since we don't want to be in the position of having cut off someone's only link to 911. The network engineers don't sit around all day looking for infected boxes, but if performance issues are traced to an infected customer they definitely get cut off.
Programming

Yahoo Releases Open Source Hadoop Distribution 49

ruphus13 writes "Yahoo has been a vociferous Apache Hadoop user and supporter for several years now, and uses it extensively within its Search technologies. Hadoop has been gaining popularity in the Cloud Computing space, with companies like the NYTimes converting 4TB and 11 million articles to PDFs in under 24 hours using Hadoop and EC2 in late 2007. Hadoop has been made available in Amazon's cloud and Yahoo has now released its own Hadoop version. From the article: 'At today's Hadoop Summit in Silicon Valley, Yahoo! announced the availability of the Yahoo! Distribution of Hadoop, a source-only version of Apache Hadoop that Yahoo! uses within its own search engine. [Hadoop] is an open source software framework that helps process very large data sets, and is widely used in large-scale data mining applications as well as in search tools at sites like Facebook and many others. For developers and users interested in Hadoop, it's worth noting that the Yahoo! Distribution of Hadoop has been widely tested and developed at Yahoo! for years now.'"
Games

Left 4 Dead SDK Beta Released 75

Valve has released a beta version of their authoring tools for Left 4 Dead. The tools will allow you to "create your own campaign maps, character skins, 3D models, sound effects, and music and load them into the game." The kit includes a level editor and command-line compiling utilities, as well as example maps, props, infected, and explosives. It also brings plugins for a 3D modeling program called SketchUp. Valve has updated their development wiki to go along with the release.
Software

Wayland, a New X Server For Linux 487

An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has a new article out on Wayland: A New X Server For Linux. One of Red Hat's engineers has started writing a new X11 server around today's needs and to eliminate the cruft that has been in this critical piece of free software for more than a decade. This new server is called Wayland and it is designed with newer hardware features like kernel mode-setting and a kernel memory manager for graphics. Wayland is also dramatically simpler to target for in development. A compositing manager is embedded into the Wayland server and ensures 'every frame is perfect' according to the project's leader."
Microsoft

Teacher Avoids Getting Sent to Siberia For Piracy 252

Piracy Support Line writes "Russian principal Alexander Ponosov will not be visiting Siberia any time soon, at least not for the allegedly illegal Microsoft software that were preloaded on the computers they bought and Microsoft supported the reseller's story. Although Bill Gates rejected Mikhail Gorbachev's personal appeal for mercy on behalf of the teacher, the judge was kinder. Judge Elvira Mosheva decided to dismiss the case because 'Microsoft's financial damage is too insignificant for a criminal investigation.'"
Windows

Submission + - NVIDIA responds to complaints about Vista drivers

Not Straight writes: NVIDIA has issued an official response to the widespread complaints about the gaming performance of their GeForce cards under Vista. They're 'aware' of and monitoring nvidiaclassaction.org, but they have no plans to remove the Designed for Vista and Ready for Vista labeling from their products as requested by the site. Furthermore, they don't have a firm timeframe for delivering fully-compatible drivers. 'Over the coming weeks NVIDIA and our partners, along with the industry will continue to update Windows Vista drivers to ensure maximum performance on 3D applications and add feature support.' Until then, it looks like most gamers with GeForce cards will be best served by sticking with Windows XP.
DRM

Are New DRM Technologies Setting Vista Up For Failure? 407

PetManimal writes "Computerworld has picked apart the way Vista handles DRM in terms of hardware and software restrictions. Trusted Platform Module, Output Protection Management, Protected Video Path and various Windows Media software components are designed to 'protect' copyrighted content against security breaches and unauthorized use. The article notes that many of the DRM technologies were forced upon Vista by the entertainment industry, but that may not garner Microsoft or Hollywood any sympathy with consumers: 'Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at research firm Directions On Microsoft, asserts that this process does not bode well for new content formats such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD, neither of which are likely to survive their association with DRM technology. "I could not be more skeptical about the viability of the DRM included with Vista, from either a technical or a business standpoint," Rosoff stated. "It's so consumer-unfriendly that I think it's bound to fail — and when it fails, it will sink whatever new formats content owners are trying to impose."'"

Intel Experimenting With Nanotubes 85

illeism writes "C|Net is reporting on Intel's experimentation with nanotubes in processors. From the article: 'The chip giant has managed to create prototype interconnects — microscopic metallic wires inside of chips that link transistors ... Carbon nanotubes ... conduct electricity far better than metals. In fact, nanotubes exhibit what's called ballistic conductivity, which means that electrons are not scattered or impeded by obstacles.'"

Tech Companies and Politicians: Who Pays Who? 112

fiorenza writes "An investigation into political contributions by technology companies shows that Republicans are the top beneficiaries of such donations, but the Dems aren't too far behind. Perhaps most interesting, it appears that tech companies know that to really get what they want, they need to lobby directly. From the article: 'It's not just Microsoft that is spending these massive amounts. The computer/Internet industry as a whole dropped $84 million on lobbying in 2005 — more even than the TV/movies/music groups. Although the firms at the end of the Internet 'pipes' are spending money, it's dwarfed by the expenditures of those firms that own the 'pipes' themselves.'"

The War Is Over, and Linux Has Won 593

xtaski writes "Dana Blankenhorn bluntly states a reality that many have known: 'The war is over and Linux won'. With Oracle and Microsoft putting Linux in the spotlight and positioning themselves to grow with Linux. 'A new report shows that 83% of companies expect to support new workloads on Linux against 23% for Windows. ... Over two-thirds of the respondents said they will increase their use of Linux in the next year, and almost no one said the opposite.'"

UK Woman Charged As Terrorist For Computer Files 470

Terror Alert Brown writes "Reuters is reporting that a UK woman has been charged as a terrorist because of computer files on her hard drive. According to the article, these files included 'the Al Qaeda Manual, The Terrorists Handbook, The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook, a manual for a Dragunov sniper rifle, and The Firearms and RPG Handbook.' She was picked up in connection with the plot stopped in August to detonate explosives in airplanes flying out of Heathrow airport. Now might be a good time to delete any copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook you once read for amusement and still have floating around on your hard drive."

Successful Alternatives To Password Authentication? 188

DonaldP asks: "Have any of you successfully deployed a key, token, or biometric-based access control for Windows machines to replace (or enhance) the typical login/logout authentication process (even image-recognition schemes would be considered)? I see different stuff out there but short of actually evaluating each one, it's hard to get a good idea of what the scene is like, what is crap and what actually delivers. Does anyone have experience with such systems, or can suggest other suitable solutions?"

New Mono 1.2 Now Supports WinForms 304

smbarbour writes "The Mono project (the open-source .NET compatibility library acquired by Novell when Ximian was purchased) has released version 1.2. They are now including support for WinForms. Ars Technica has a detailed rundown on the new release. The Mono project supports Visual Basic.NET as well, so developers that use VB.NET now have the possibility of directly porting applications to Linux." From the article: "Relatively high memory consumption and performance bottlenecks are commonly perceived as being amongst Mono's most significant weaknesses. Some critics frequently refer to various performance issues to support arguments against broader adoption of Mono technology in open source projects, most notably within the GNOME community. The performance improvements in Mono 1.2 could potentially address such criticisms, but it is likely that a lot more work will be required before the problems are completely resolved."

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, Me Hearties 206

nmb3000 writes "Avast, me maties! Today be th' International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Fer today only, ye lubbers no worthy 'nough t' enjoy th' noble vocation o' Pirate can join th' ranks! Firs' ye'll need t' lern t' talk like a pirate, then find yer pirate name, doonload yer ringtones, an' finally sling back some grog. Be smart aboot it, fer today's th' day ninjas fear...ever'one's a pirate! Arrrr!"

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