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Submission + - Malwarebytes forums compromised (tidbitsfortechs.com)

Submitted by toygeek
toygeek writes: Just a few minutes ago, I received an email from Malwarebytes notifying me that I'd have to change my forum password next time I logged in. On November 10th their Invision Power Board based forum was compromised. Yes, it can happen to anyone! There are several lessons that can be learned, as outlined in my blog post below:

Submission + - fake Price Comparison fools Walmart (clarkhoward.com)

Submitted by turkeydance
turkeydance writes: People are reportedly creating fake Amazon pages to show fake prices on electronics and other items. In the most heavily publicized cases, Walmart was reportedly duped into selling $400 PlayStation 4 consoles for under $100.

Here's how this scam has played out: The perpetrators create fake Amazon pages and show these fake listings to Walmart cashiers (and ultimately to store managers) in an attempt to con them into matching the phantom prices.

Comment Bad management. Discouraging use of Thunderbird? (Score -1, Troll) 400

Yahoo has been terribly managed, and Mozilla Foundation is rapidly getting worse.

It appears that Mozilla Foundation is trying to discourage the use of the Thunderbird email client. The newest version of Thunderbird, 31.2.0, has the Save-As bug. All file saves are Save As, and suggest a different file name than saved before.

Other obvious bugs were introduced. For example, the fields for email addresses are much more difficult to read. The Save-As bug has been reported, but no new version has been released.

If many windows and tabs are open for a long time, Firefox now crashes in a way that does not cause a crash report to be sent.

Submission + - Debian Votes not to Mandate Non-systemd Compatibility

Submitted by paskie
paskie writes: Voting on a Debian General Resolution that would require packagers to maintain support even for systems not running systemd ended tonight with the resolution failing to gather enough support.

This means that some Debian packages could require users to run systemd on their systems in theory — however, in practice Debian still works fine without systemd (even with e.g. GNOME) and this will certainly stay the case at least for the next stable release Jessie.

However, the controversial GR proposed late in the development cycle opened many wounds in the community, prompting some prominent developers to resign or leave altogether, stirring strong emotions — not due to adoption of systemd per se, but because of the emotional burn-out and shortcomings in the decision processes apparent in the wake of the systemd controversy.

Nevertheless, work on the next stable release is well underway and some developers are already trying to mend the community and soothe the wounds.

Comment IMO: Deliberate, no accident. (Score 1) 550

"The best analogy in the Windows world for systemd is the Win95 registry..."

The Windows registry was designed to make it very, very difficult for people to make copies of software to use on another computer. The Windows registry was intentional obfuscation, and very much against the needs of users, because of the huge amounts of time it takes to understand and fix problems with the registry.

A comment below says, "SystemD is RedHat's version of embrace and extend." That seems a better explanation. The way it is being done is certainly deliberate. Starting a big hassle that damages the reputation of Linux is certainly against the needs of the users.

It seems that the entire U.S. culture is becoming more adversarial. For example, there are health care insurance policies that are written in such a way that the insured will not understand that they aren't being fully covered.

Companies are deliberately over-billing. Many people cannot afford the time to find all the ways they are being treated badly.

Submission + - Apple cannot fire Woz because he is still reporting to Steve Jobs (bizjournals.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Last week, Steve Wozniak (http://www.woz.org/) spoke at an "Internet Summit" in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina.

During his remarks, Woz said that reports of him him "hating Apple" have been taken out of context: "I am an employee of Apple still. I want to be the only person who has been on the paycheck every single day since day one of the company. I don't think they can fire me."

Woz also explained that company paperwork says that he is stil reporting to Steve Jobs. "I said, 'oh, well, at least I can't get fired,'" he said. That's good because, earlier in the month, Woz responded to a hardware bug report (http://www.willegal.net/blog/?p=6023) regarding the original Apple-I.

There was no word on if Apple has tried to confisciate his red stapler.

Submission + - How to anesthetize an octopus (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Researchers have figured out how to anesthetize octopuses so the animals do not feel pain while being transported and handled during scientific experiments. In a study published online this month in the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health, researchers report immersing 10 specimens of the common octopus in seawater with isoflurane, an anesthetic used in humans. They gradually increased the concentration of the substance from 0.5% to 2%. The investigators found that the animals lost the ability to respond to touch and their color paled, which means that their normal motor coordination of color regulation by the brain was lost, concluding that the animals were indeed anesthetized. The octopuses then recovered from the anesthesia within 40 to 60 minutes of being immersed in fresh seawater without the anesthetic, as they were able to respond to touch again and their color was back to normal. (Video)

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: TLD Acknowledgement Issues? 3

Submitted by dr_pardee
dr_pardee writes: I recently founded a small corporation and used Holdings in my business name. Since the .holdings top level domain exists, I decided to register a domain name with the .holdings extension.

What I have found is that larger companies and service providers are not acknowledging .holdings as a valid TLD and it's been a complete hassle.
AWS ("SNS does not currently support the newer TLDs like .holdings."), Microsoft Volume Licensing (Uses InterNIC to valid domain names), Elance (".holdings for email addresses is not accepted"), HP, etc... will not accept it.

Is it reasonable to expect that companies acknowledge gTLDs allowed by ICANN? Have others been facing this?

Comment Mod parent up. It's deliberate dishonesty. (Score 1) 223

by Futurepower(R) (#48384547) Attached to: Overbilled Customer Sues Time Warner Cable For False Advertising
In 2008, banks arranged bank failures that caused job loss. That allowed companies to fire 10% of their staff and make the other 90% do the work because the 90% were afraid they would lose their jobs, also.

People are so overworked that they don't feel they have time to investigate over-billing. Companies take advantage of that by being as difficult as possible. It's deliberate dishonesty and becoming a standard way U.S. companies do business.

(I imagine that English is a 2nd language for the parent commenter.)

Submission + - US Marshals flying cell tower spoofers on small planes. (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by whoever57
whoever57 writes: The US Marshals Service is running cell tower spoofers on small planes. These devices are called "dirtboxes". The devices are made by Boeing Co. and can collect information from tens of thousands of cellphones in a single flight. When asked about the program, the US Justice department could neither confirm nor deny the reports.

Submission + - Can the US reverse its internet provider corporatocracy? (sonic.net)

Submitted by riskkeyesq
riskkeyesq writes: Dane Jasper, CEO of Sonic.net wrote: "There are a number of threats to the Internet as a system for innovation, commerce and education today. They include net neutrality, the price of Internet access in America, performance, rural availability and privacy.

But none of these are the root issue, they’re just symptoms.

The root cause of all of these symptoms is a disease: a lack of competition for consumer Internet access."

Soft landings for former legislators, lobbyists disguised as regulators, hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber sitting unused, the sham that is the internet provider free market is keeping the US in a telecommunications third-world.

What, exactly, can American citizens do about it?

Submission + - Senate may vote on NSA reform as soon as next week (dailydot.com) 1

Submitted by apexcp
apexcp writes: Senate Majority Leader (for now) Harry Reid announced he will be taking the USA FREEDOM Act to a floor vote in the Senate as early as next week. While the bill, if passed, would be the first significant legislative reform of the NSA since 9/11, many of the act's initial supporters have since disavowed it, claiming that changes to its language mean it won't do enough to curb the abuses of the American survailence state

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