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Censorship

Submission + - Livejournal censors post about haircuts

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The popular blogging site Livejournal has introduced a new "feature" that hides entries behind a warning that you might be about to view adult content. The warnings don't seem to follow any rhyme or reason — so far I've clicked through them to read about a friend's haircut and another friend getting stuck in the snow.
Biotech

Submission + - Tree Frogs Inspire Reusable Superglue [pics] (scienceblogs.com)

Submitted by
grrlscientist
grrlscientist writes: "Do you like to sneakily unwrap your gifts before Christmas to learn what they are? Well, scientists are helping you do this by developing a new reusable adhesive superglue!

From the story: The reason that conventional tape cannot be reused is because the adhesive forms permanent cracks when peeled from a surface. While these tiny cracks allow tape to be removed, they also render it useless. But a team of scientists, led by Abhijit Majumder at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, India, discovered that the adhesive on the toe pads of tree frogs and crickets contain microscopic channels that prevent cracking when they are peeled from a surface."
The Courts

Submission + - Judge allows RIAA expert to testify (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Judge David G. Trager has ruled that Dr. Doug Jacobson can testify as an expert in UMG v. Lindor even though Dr. Jacobson had conceded at his deposition that his method satisfied none of the "reliability factors" enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U. S. 579 (1993) and that he had no reason to think MediaSentry's materials — upon which Jacobson's testimony was based — could satisfy them either. The Daubert factors are "(1) whether a theory or technique "can be and has been tested," (2) whether the theory or technique has been subjected to peer review and publication, (3) a technique's known or potential rate of error, and the existence and maintenance of standards controlling the technique's operation, and (4) whether a particular technique or theory has gained general acceptance in the relevant scientific community". Judge Trager dismissed these as mere "suggestions" by the high court, but could point to no cases where any other judge had allowed expert testimony where not a single Daubert reliability factor had been satisfied."
Spam

Spam Lawsuit's Last Laugh is at Hormel's Expense 172

Posted by Zonk from the junk-email-junk-email-eggs-and-junk-email dept.
Brian Cartmell writes "An article at the Minneapolis — StarTribune site covers a significant setback for the Hormel food company, in a case that's being closely watched by security companies across the country. Seattle-based Spam Arrest has gone up against the creator of the food substance in court, fighting for the right to use the word spam in its company name. The US Trademark Trial and Appeal board has sided with the spam fighters, agreeing that consumers of the Spam product would never confuse the food with junk email. 'Derek Newman, Spam Arrest's attorney, said the decision opens the door for many other anti-spam software companies ... "Spam Arrest fought this battle for the whole software industry," Newman said.'"
Patents

Submission + - Piracy Can Be Good: in non-geek language (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by
crazybilly
crazybilly writes: "Explaining why piracy isn't bad for businesses can be difficult, especially when talking to nontechnical people. Globeandmail.com provides an article explaining not only why piracy isn't necessary bad for business buy how piracy has benefited buisnesses and artist (including Hollywood) in the past. Using historical examples, ranging from Daniel Defoe to the VCR, they make a strong case for why the RIAA and company ought to relax."
Security

Submission + - NZ teen accused of being cyber crime kingpin (news.com.au) 3

Submitted by
davetv
davetv writes: "A YOUNG New Zealand man has been accused of leading a group of cyber criminals who caused at least $US20 million ($A22.7 million) damage around the world. In a joint investigation between New Zealand Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dutch authorities, the home of an 18-year-old known online as AKILL was raided on Wednesday."
Privacy

Submission + - Judge orders release of lobbying for immunity data

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today's Washpost carries and AP story noting a judge's order to the Feds to provide information on lobbying efforts of Telco's to gain immunity from prosectution. The order comes in the class action case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against AT&T for giving the NSA access to it's networks. This order will likely produce little information which is not redacted and claimed to be necessary to nat'l security but in so doing will only demonstrate the degree of gov't-corporate collusion in avoidance of some of the most basic cornerstones of this democracy — and need for these issues to be heard in higher courts. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/28/AR2007112802318.html
Government

Canada's New DMCA Considered Worst Copyright Law 234

Posted by kdawson from the outdoing-the-southern-neighbours dept.
loconet writes "The government of Canada is preparing to attempt to bring a new DMCA-modeled copyright law in Canada in order to comply with the WIPO treaties the country signed in 1997. (These treaties were also the base of the American DMCA.) The new Canadian law will be even more restrictive in nature than the American version and worse than the last Canadian copyright proposal, the defeated Bill C-60. Among the many restrictive clauses in this new law, as Michael Geist explains, is the total abolishment of the concept of fair use: 'No parody exception. No time shifting exception. No device shifting exception. No expanded backup provision. Nothing.' Geist provides a list of 30 things that can be done to address the issues."
Music

EMI May Cut Funding To RIAA, IFPI 158

Posted by kdawson from the return-on-investment dept.
Teen Bainwolf notes a report that Big Four record label EMI, which is under new ownership, is considering a big cut in its funding for the IFPI and RIAA. Each of the labels reportedly contributed over $132 million per year to fund industry trade groups, and EMI apparently believes that money could be better spent elsewhere. "One of the chief activities of the RIAA is coordinating the Big Four labels' legal campaign, and those thousands of lawsuits have done nothing but generate ill will from record fans, while costing the labels millions of dollars and doing little (if anything) to actually reduce the amount of file-sharing going on."
Security

Journal SPAM: Reported malfunction in PayPal Security Key 1

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

In association with VeriSign, PayPal rolled out their one-time-password Security Key earlier this year. Generating six random digits every 30 seconds, the small electronic token provided an additional layer of authentication against phishing attacks. But, according to an IT administrator who has used the PayPal Security Key for several months now, a bug could allow phishers to bypass the measure. Chris Romero s
Privacy

Submission + - Manitoba: Report child porn or go to jail

Submitted by biggknifeparty
biggknifeparty writes: The NDP government in the Canadian province of Manitoba is introducing legislation requiring anyone who becomes aware of child pornography to report it to the authorities or face up to 2 years in prison and a $50000 dollar fine. Internet Service Providers and computer service shops will now have to forward their suspicions to cybertip.ca. There is no doubt that the intentions are positive, to protect our children above all else, but is this not a slippery slope that will lead to privacy concerns? In Soviet Manitoba citizens spy on each other.
Censorship

Submission + - Linux Users Can't Sell On eBay (ubuntuforums.org) 2

Submitted by bobintetley
bobintetley writes: Many Linux/Firefox users are reporting problems uploading images to eBay. Having tested this myself, it is indeed completely broken. Why eBay would break standard HTTP uploads by using IE specific javascript to "check the file exists" boggles the mind. This problem has been reported to eBay since late October, but so far with no resolution. eBay have since stated that only IE is supported. I guess when you have no real competition you can pull stunts like this.
Biotech

Submission + - A cancer-resistant mouse?

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "University of Kentucky researchers have created a cancer-resistant mouse by introducing a tumor-suppressor gene called 'Par-4' into an egg. The 'Par-4' gene, discovered in 1993, kills cancer cells, but not normal cells. It was originally found in the prostate, but this gene also can lead to the death of a broad range of cancer cells. In their new experiments, the scientists discovered that the 'Par-4' gene was transmitted to new generations of mice. The next step will to use this gene in humans through bone marrow transplantation, but there is still work to be done before that. Anyway, this sounds like good news for people affected with cancers. But read more for additional details and references."
Security

Submission + - FTC says 8.3 million hit with identity theft (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The Federal Trade Commission today released a survey showing that 8.3 million American adults, or almost 4% of all American adults, were victims of identity theft in 2005. A Gartner study in 2006 said ID theft victims numbered 15 million victims. Of the 2005 victims, the FTC said 3.2 million experienced misuse of their existing credit card accounts; 3.3 million experienced misuse of non-credit card accounts; and 1.8 million victims found that new accounts were opened or other frauds were committed using their personal identifying information.The survey found that the costs associated with identity theft varied widely. In at least half of all incidents, thieves obtained goods or services worth $500 or less. In 10 percent of cases, however, thieves got at least $6,000 worth of goods or services. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22306"
Security

Submission + - Major QuickTime Vulnerability in Latest Version (beskerming.com)

Submitted by
SkiifGeek
SkiifGeek writes: "Less than a month after news of active OS X fake codec malware, a major vulnerability in the latest version of QuickTime (7.3, only released two weeks ago) has been discovered and has already gone from proof-of-concept exploit code to two readily available exploit samples.

With the ease by which this exploit can be integrated with media streams, it marks a greater threat for end users than a fake codec. At this stage, about the best mitigation recommended is to disable support for RTSP via the File Type / Advanced -> MIME Settings option in QuickTime's Control Panel / PreferencePane. Even though the exploit is only for Windows systems (including Vista — QuickTime apparently doesn't utilise ASLR), OS X users could be at threat from related problems, given historical RTSP vulnerabilities."

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