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Microsoft Admits Vista Has "High Impact Issues" 520

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:50PM from the surprising-no-one dept.

EggsAndSausage writes "Microsoft has granted, in a roundabout way, that Vista has 'high impact issues.' It has put out an email call for technical users to participate in testing Service Pack 1, due out later this year, which will address 'regressions from Windows Vista and Windows XP, security, deployment blockers and other high impact issues.' It's hard to know whether to be reassured that Service Pack 1 is coming in the second half of 2007, and thus that there is a timeframe for considering deployment of Vista within businesses, or to be alarmed that Microsoft is unleashing an OS on the world with 'high impact issues' still remaining." In other news, one blogger believes that Vista is the first Microsoft OS since Windows 3.1 to have regressed in usability from its predecessor (he kindly forgives and dismisses Windows ME). And there's a battle raging over the top 10 reasons to get Vista or not to get Vista.

Submission + - 26 Internet policy tips for the new Congress

Submitted by

Rigabov

on Monday January 22, 2007 @09:23PM

Rigabov writes: "In the coming months, the 110th Congress will be faced with decisions on issues ranging from surveillance, to online censorship, to consumer privacy that will have a lasting impact on the Internet. The Center for democracy and technology has 26 suggestion to help the Congress face those tough policy challenges. Here are the recommendations are at a glance, and here you may read the full report.

Examples include:

Congress Should Not Prevent Minors from Using Blogs and Social Networking Sites

Congress Should Enact Strong Data Breach Legislation

Congress Should Establish Strong Privacy Protections for Information Sharing for Counter-terrorism Purposes

Congress Should Monitor Developments in the Broadband Market

Congress Should Adopt Electronic Filing of Campaign Finance Reports

"

Journal Journal: Worst. President. Evar....now with Holocaust Denial! 2

Journal by ncc74656 on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:55PM

Looks like the peanut farmer has taken up Holocaust denial as a hobby:

Jimmy Carter Speaks on WWII & the "So-Called" Holocaust (Video)

Submission + - Connecticut Teacher Faces 40 Years For Pop-Ups

Submitted by Artaxs on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:48PM

Artaxs writes: http://www.alternet.org/rights/46925/

"Julie Amero, a 40-year-old substitute teacher from Connecticut is facing up to 40 years in prison for exposing her seventh grade class to a cascade of pornographic imagery. Amero maintains that she is a victim of a malicious software infestation that caused her computer to spawn porn uncontrollably."

Submission + - Fortune: Second Life: It's not a game

Submitted by

nevermore94

on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:41PM

nevermore94 writes: ""Fortune's David Kirkpatrick reports on why IBM's Sam Palmisano and other tech leaders think Second Life could be a gold mine."

I think that this is one of the best written articles that I have read about Second Life. Not only does it talk about why so many companies, such as IBM, are investing heavily in it, but also it gives a good description and history of it and its goals and technology. It praises it where it's due and doesn't pull any punches in discussing its flaws either."

Submission + - Ebola Vaccine Shows Promise

Submitted by

waterford0069

on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:34PM

waterford0069 writes: "Researchers in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada have developed a post exposure vaccine against Ebola which is at least 50% effective in animal models. While there are other treatments for Ebola such as coagulation inhibitors (33% effective) and antisense drugs (75% effective), it is hoped that this post exposure vaccine can help to treat Ebola in the same manner as rabies and smallpox are treated in humans."

Submission + - 'Gears' Gets 10 Nominations

Submitted by

njkid1

on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:25PM

njkid1 writes: "CliffyB and Epic Games might be very happy when the 10th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards come to a close next month. Epic's Gears of War has been given an overwhelming 10 nominations, as AIAS unveiled its list of finalists.http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/featur e/?id=15021&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000022"

Submission + - Domain google.de apparently kidnapped

Submitted by

Christian_Franz_LL.M

on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:22PM

Christian_Franz_LL.M writes: "On tuesday night, someone appears to have managed to be registered as the holder of the domain "google.de". The service of the German section of Google Inc. was unavailable, displaying only an "under construction" message.

This appears to be an extraordinarily spectacular attempt in suicide, lest the apperent new domain holder, a Mr. Martin Rusteberg of Germany, happens to hold prior rights in the string "google". A quick search revealed that there are no trade marks registered in Germany (https://dpinfo.dpma.de/protect/mar.html), with OAMI with respect to European trade marks (http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/RequestManager/) nor with the WIPO with respect to so-called international trade marks that might have been extended to cover Germany (http://www.wipo.int/ipdl/en/search/madrid/search- struct.jsp). This should allow Google Inc. to sort out the problem by means of an injunction by a German court within the day or a couple of days at most.

This might be different though, should the current domain holder turn out to have any other kind of rights in the string "google" himself, e.g. using it as a company identifier prior to Goolge Inc.'s market entry in Germany.

Unlike other TLDs, the German registrar DENIC e.G. (http://www.denic.de)does not provide a dispute resolution procedure. That means that the possible kidnapping of the domain will be subject to German jurisdiction. That means that while, for example, the ICANN Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (http://www.icann.org/udrp/) allows for "soft arguments" to be brought forward and domains to be transferred directly if there is no response by the defendant, arbitration in front of a German court could turn out to be more difficult that one might, at first sight, expect.

Whilst there can be little doubt that google would eventually succeed in regaining the domain due to it's overwhelming fame, the path to victory could turn out stony.

There is juristdiction by Germany's Federal Court of Justice that accepts that in a conflict of prior rights, the rights of a party that has what has been described as "an absolute reputation", prevail (BGH, Urt. v. 22.11.01, I ZR 138/99 — shell.de, http://netlaw.de/urteile/bgh_13.htm).

Still, it is rather unlikely that this concept would be sufficient to allow Google Inc. to achieve an injunction under German law. This is due to the requirement that no injunction must anticipate the final decision — which would be the case if the current domain holder was forced to cancel the domain.

By the way: under German law, no right holder can ask for a domain to be transferred. It has to be cancelled and can then be re-registered by the rights holder. Google Inc. will have to ask for a so called dispute entry by the registrar Denic e.G., which will bar the domain from any further transactions, and then go to court really, really quickly.

Depending on whether or not the current registrant has any prior rights, this might turn out as a finacial suicide or the easiest way to earn real money without any effort at all — if, which is not unlikely, Google Inc. decides to cut things short and buy the new registrant out. Which, I have a tinkle, may have been the idea in the first place.

Still, this is high rolling: from both a legal and a financial point of view, it would have been less risky just to rob a bank. It's probably just that geeks aren't any good at this sort of thing, in contrast to the fine detail of domain registration policies...

For further information on German internet law, visit http://www.netlaw.de/ or just ask: cfranz@christianfranz.net.

Christian Franz, LL.M.
Rechtsanwalt
(Attorney at Law)
Düsseldorf, Germany"

Submission + - Brain waves could be the next biometric

Submitted by galactic_grub on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:16PM

galactic_grub writes: NewScientistTech has a story about European researchers developing an EEG-based biometric security system. As a person's electroencephalography (EEG) patterns are defined by the unique pattern of their neural pathways, this could provide a hard-to-forge method of identification. The researchers behind it believe the system could prove useful for high-security access-control, although participants have to sit silently, with the eyes closed, in order to use it.

Submission + - Net neutrality never was - econ and tech review

Submitted by

Jennifer Manfre

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:53PM

Jennifer Manfre writes: "In the latest release of the Milken Institute Review, Bob Hahn and Bob Litan of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center examine the budding debate over "net neutrality" in hope of warding off innovation-dampening regulation in the name of fairness. "Policymakers should look at how the Internet really functions from technical and economic perspectives," they write. "If content providers are willing to pay for enhanced quality, there is no good reason for regulators to deter them." The Milken Institute Review is available online at www.milkeninstitute.org."

Submission + - Defense Witness in "Spyware in school" cas

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:34PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Network Performance Daily offered Mr. Herb Horner, the defense expert witness in the case of Julie Amero, the Connecticut substitute teacher convicted and awaiting sentence for what defense argues was a spyware infection, a chance to speak out on the case. (Tomorrow NPD hopes to have commentary from Detective Mark Lounsbury, who testified for the prosecution at Ms. Amero's trial.)
From the article: 'We asked the prosecution to arrange for the defense to have unfettered access to the internet so that we could reenact the events of October 19, 2004. It was not granted. I went to court with two laptops and a box full of reference material prepared to very clearly illustrate what happened to Julie Amero. But, the prosecution objected because they were not given "full disclosure" of my examination. I was allowed to illustrate two screens, that of the www.hair-styles.org [do not click], and www.new-hair-styles.com [do not click] sites. This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my career, knowing full well that the person is innocent and not being allowed to provide logical proof.'"

Submission + - google.de domain pirated??

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:29PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "hi folks. seems that some really smart guy managed to have the german domain 'guardian' denic.de to tranfer the google.de domain to himself.

Domain query on
http://www.denic.de/de/whois/data.jsp for google.de gives the following results (23/01/07, 00:26 )

Copyright DENIC eG
Domaindaten
Domain: google.de
Letzte Aktualisierung: 22.01.2007
Domaininhaber

Der Domaininhaber ist der Vertragspartner der DENIC und damit der an der Domain materiell Berechtigte.

Domaininhaber: Martin Rusteberg
Adresse: Hellmundstr. 31
PLZ: 65183
Ort: Wiesbaden
Land: DE
Administrativer Ansprechpartner, Technischer Ansprechpartner, Zonenverwalter

Der administrative Ansprechpartner (admin-c) ist die vom Domaininhaber benannte natürliche Person, die als sein Bevollmächtigter berechtigt und gegenüber DENIC auch verpflichtet ist, sämtliche die Domain google.de betreffenden Angelegenheiten verbindlich zu entscheiden.

Der technische Ansprechpartner (tech-c) betreut die Domain google.de in technischer Hinsicht.

Der Zonenverwalter (zone-c) betreut die Nameserver der Domain google.de.

Name: Mario Micklisch
Adresse: Hellmund Str. 31
PLZ: 65183
Ort: Wiesbaden
Land: DE
Telefon: +491717067046
Telefax: +49 12126 32863286
E-Mail: info@favo.org
Bemerkungen: ID #8614
Technische Daten
Nameserver: ns1.namesecure.de.
Nameserver: ns2.namesecure.de.

Might wanna check this out."

Submission + - Fight spam with Nolisting

Submitted by on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:23PM

An anonymous reader writes: "Nolisting fights spam by specifying a primary MX that is always unavailable.

"It has been observed that when a domain has both a primary (high priority, low number) and a secondary (low priority, high number) MX record configured in DNS, overall SMTP connections will decrease when the primary MX is unavailable. This decrease is unexpected because RFC 2821 (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) specifies that a client MUST try and retry each MX address in order, and SHOULD try at least two addresses. It turns out that nearly all violators of this specification exist for the purpose of sending spam or viruses. Nolisting takes advantage of this behaviour by configuring a domain's primary MX record to use an IP address that does not have an active service listening on SMTP port 25. RFC-compliant clients will retry delivery to the secondary MX, which is configured to serve the role normally performed by the primary MX (final delivery, transport rerouting, etc.)."

Submission + - Microsoft offering free Vista "test drive"

Submitted by

Aryabhata

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:10PM

Aryabhata writes: "ArsTechnica reports that Microsoft recently unveiled a new web site called "Windows Vista Test Drive," designed to allow business users, consumers, and the merely curious to find out what running Microsoft's latest operating system might be like, without actually having to install it.
The web site requires Windows 2000 or XP, Internet Explorer 6 or 7, and Microsoft's Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) Advanced ActiveX control."

FCC Nixes Satellite Radio Merger 277

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:09PM from the Howard-meet-Oprah dept.

a_nonamiss writes "Doesn't look like Sirius and XM are going to merge any time soon. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Logically, I know that competition is a good thing for consumers, and monopolies are generally only good for companies. Still, I don't like having to choose a car based on which satellite radio service comes pre-installed, or considering whether I'd rather have Howard Stern or Oprah, because there is no practical way to get both. Frankly, it's probably all this exclusivity that has caused me not to purchase either system." From the article: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters after an FCC meeting that the Commission would not approve a merger between satellite radio rivals Sirius and XM Radio... When the FCC initially licensed the two satellite radio companies in 1997, there was language in the licensing barring one from acquiring control of the other... Even if the FCC were to have a change of heart..., it would still have to pass antitrust scrutiny by the Department of Justice."

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