540696
story
micheas writes
"Larry Lessig has decided that running for U.S. Congress himself in a special election would be too risky to his Change Congress movement and has decided not to run. 'With lots of mixed feelings, I have decided a run for Congress would not help the Change Congress movement. I explain the thinking in this 5 minute video (a new record for me!). First question: What happens to the contributions to Lessig08? As explained on the ActBlue page, all will go to (the yet to be established) Change Congress organization.'"
540778
story
narramissic writes
"In a recent ITworld article, Security researcher Brent Huston ponders how it is that versions of SQL worms dating back to 2002 represent nearly 70% of all malicious traffic on the Internet today. 'I have made a few attempts to backtrack hosts that perform the scans and at first blush many show the signs of common botnet infections. Most are not running exposed SQL themselves, so that means that the code has likely been implemented into many bot-net exploitation frameworks. Perhaps the bot masters have the idea that when they infiltrate a commercial network, the SQL exploits will be available and useful to them? My assessment team says this is pretty true. Even today, they find blank "sa" passwords and other age-old SQL issues inside major corporate clients. So perhaps, that is why these old exploits continue to thrive."
540614
story
Gallenod writes
"The Denver Post is reporting that the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of a Federal judge who threw out and reversed a jury decision in favor of a patent infringement claim and ordered the plaintiff's lawyers to pay the defendants' court costs. U.S. District Senior Judge Richard P. Matsch sanctioned the plaintiff's attorneys for 'cavalier and abusive' misconduct and for having a 'what can I get away with?' attitude during a 13-day patent infringement trial in Denver. With the Appeals Court in agreement, could this case be the 'shot heard round the world' in the revolution against patent trolls?"
198063
submission
sciarbus writes:
Akamai's new-ish Flash
Real Time Web Monitor page shows that
for the last few days, and perhaps longer, Venezuela has been under sustained
cyber-attack. Indeed, at 1000+ attacks/ day, Venezuela is currently sustaining more
cyber-attacks than any other country in the world. It appears that there maybe the
equivalent of a
long-running cyber-civil war underway in Venezuela, as pro and anti-Government
supporters attack each others online assets. Casualties to date include the Venezuelan
Government Ombudsman's website, as well as the websites of the National Assembly and
state-run Food Markets. After Estonia, do I sense a trend here?
