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Security

Submission + - Nasa hacker loses latest bid against extradition (zdnet.co.uk)

Submitted by
superglaze
superglaze writes: "The self-confessed Nasa hacker, Gary McKinnon, has lost his latest bid against extradition to the US over charges of hacking into and damaging military and other federal computer systems in 2001 and 2002.

McKinnon had tried to argue that the former home secretary, Jacqui Smith, was wrong to ignore his Asperger Syndrome in pushing for extradition, and that the director of public prosecutions was wrong to decide he shouldn't be tried in the UK, despite having sufficient evidence to prosecute.

The hacker has attracted backing from politicians and celebrities, who also point to the lopsided extradition treaty the UK has with the US, but high court judges decided on Friday that he should be extradited. Further appeals await."
Security

Submission + - British Hacker loses extradition appeal (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by jabithew
jabithew writes: British hacker Gary McKinnon has today lost his appeal to avoid extradition to the United States for hacking into the computers of several Federal institutions, while looking for evidence of UFOs. This is not quite the end of the line for Gary, as he can still appeal to the Law Lords and to the European Court of Human Rights. Nevertheless, there remain important questions. For the British; are we happy with the Crown Prosecution Service refusing to prosecute for the relatively minor offence of computer misuse so that the Federal government can prosecute for $500,000 of criminal damage? And for the Americans; how do you feel about your government pursuing a self-described loner with Aspergers looking for UFOs? And finally, in general, do Slashdotters feel that a person with a mild autism-spectrum disorder can have a fair trial in a foreign country? Mr. McKinnon's plight has been discussed here many times before.
Security

Submission + - Gary McKinnon loses appeal, to be extradited

Submitted by
Alioth
Alioth writes: "Gary McKinnon, the British cracker accused of breaking into US defense computers in 2001 and 2002 has lost his appeal to remain in Britain and to be tried there, and instead will be extradited to the United States to face trial on federal charges. McKinnon claims he was searching for evidence of aliens and UFOs, and the US Government claims that he caused over $800,000 worth of damage after breaking into US defense networks. Supporters of McKinnon maintain that extraditing him is disproportionate, and that McKinnon won't face a fair trial in the USA."
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Two Racing Games Vanish from Digital Distribution 1

Submitted by azaris
azaris writes: Books mysteriously disappearing from Kindle isn't the only downfall of digital distribution and the ability of publishers to withdraw content licenses at a whim. Codemasters series of racing games include TOCA Race Driver 3 and Colin McRae Rally 2005, and now these two games are having their licenses expiring. This means that people who bought these games as digital downloads also stand to lose their ability to download and install said games.

Typically racing games featuring real-life teams and drivers need to license their likeness from an official body, and it seems like Codemasters aren't bothering to renew their licenses for these two games. This means they also have to pull the games from sale. Digital game distributor GOG.com have announced they will pull the downloads of these two games from customers who have purchased them, but at least they aren't remotely deleting existing game installations. An interesting question is, how would a digital game distributor with more stringent DRM handle this kind of situation?
The Courts

Submission + - 11-Word Extracts infringe Copyright in Europe 2

Submitted by splodus
splodus writes: The European Court of Justice, which is Europe's highest court, has ruled that a service providing 11-word snippets of newspaper articles could be unlawful. Media monitoring company Infopaq International searches newspaper articles and provides clients with a keyword and the five words either side. This was challenged by the DDF, a group representing newspaper interests, as infringing their members' copyright. The court has referred the issue back to national courts to determine whether copyright laws in each country will be subject to the ruling. The full ruling is available at the European Court of Justice website.
Windows

Submission + - Amazon US refunds Windows license fee too

Submitted by rrohbeck
rrohbeck writes: Today Amazon credited my card with $65.45.

After ordering an Eee PC 1005 HA from amazon.com, I asked them for a refund for the cost of Windows XP via the "Contact us" form. At first they told me to cancel any items on my order that I wanted a refund for, but after I explained that XP was preinstalled on the machine they got it. They asked what the cost of the OS was, and I answered that I had no idea but that Amazon UK refunded GBP 40.00. Within a few hours I got a response saying "I've requested a refund of $65.45 to your Visa card."

Somehow I doubt that Amazon will charge Asus or even Microsoft, but maybe they will one day if more people do this.

Eeebuntu 3.01 doesn't have network (wired or wireless) drivers for the new generation of Eee PCs, but Karmic Alpha-3 does and looks quite good already. I love the Launcher! Now let's see how long the battery will last if I run Linux only off the SDHC card and don't spin the hard drive much. Voila, poor man's SSD.

Oh and peeling off the "Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" sticker is easy too.
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Wi-Fi Allergy a PR Stunt

Submitted by ADiamond
ADiamond writes: There is no Wi-Fi allergy. The English DJ claiming a Wi-Fi sensitivity chronicled in Slashdot recently, was a PR stunt to promote his new album. It would appear that the stunt was highly successful, appearing in multiple high-profile media outlets like The Sun, The Telegraph, and Fox News. The article at Ars goes on to discuss the evidence, or lack-thereof, of electromagnetic spectrum sensitivity. Apparently, these publications don't bother to verify their sources. A cursory look into the 2% statistic would have yielded no backing data.
Books

Submission + - CPSA: Destroy Childrens Books Made Prior to 1985 (overlawyered.com)

Submitted by
bitrex
bitrex writes: "An article at Overlawyered.com discusses some of the ramifications of the Consumer Products Safety Act of 2008. Under the provisions of the bill, which took effect on February 10th of this year, it is now illegal to distribute, sell, or lend children's books printed in the United States prior to 1985, when lead paint was banned from children's products — unless each item can be proven "safe" through expensive testing. Given the harsh economic math of the process, some libraries have determined that disposing of thousands of vintage books is the only option. Here is a guide for consumers to the effects of the new legislation."
Security

Submission + - Researchers use MD5 collision to break SSL (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: CNET (and others) are reporting that a team of researchers has just announced at the 25th Chaos Communications Conference in Berlin that they have "broken" SSL. More precisely, they have further developed and exploited previously known weaknesses in MD5 to generate a rouge "certificate authority" SSL certificate which appears valid to browsers. Using this, they can sign new other certificates in any name they choose, opening up serious man-in-the-middle attacks on secure sites.

Note that this is not likely to be a problem in practice, because the exploit is technically difficult to duplicate and they are not releasing full details, nor the rogue CA cert. However — they broke SSL!
Security

Submission + - CCC Hackers break the internet creating a CA cert

Submitted by Petar
Petar writes: Alexander Sotirov, Marc Stevens, Jacob Appelbaum, Arjen Lenstra, David Molnar, Dag Arne Osvik, Benne de Weger broke the internet today by creating a rogue CA certificate that all major browser trust and can create ssl certificates for any site on the internet. To see the certificate first change your date to august 2004 and than visit I broke the internet and all I got was this t-shirt and examine the certificate (it's exipired so if it leaks nobody can use it). They also published their full research. As a side note the cluster was 200 playstations.

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