kbeech - Slashdot User

Submission + - U.S. Gov't E-mail Server Turns Into Spam Cannon (pcworld.com)

Submitted by

mytrip

on Thursday October 04, 2007 @05:55PM

mytrip writes: "Subscribers to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security daily e-mail bulletin were inundated with dozens of e-mails on Wednesday due to a glitch with the mailing list.

The gaffe started after one man, Alex Greene, a manager at GKN Freight Services Inc., sent a reply to the Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report, a round-up of security-related news reports, to change his subscription information.

The e-mail server sent Greene's reply to everyone on the DHS's subscriber list, which sent off a torrent of responses from recipients — some humorous, some irritable — which in turn were fired out again to all subscribers, according to the SANS Institute, a computer security monitoring organization. The cause of the problem was likely an erroneous change in the e-mail server's settings.

"If you maintain a broadcast mailing list, make sure that the address will not reflect e-mail from sources other than the owner of the list," Sachs wrote. "Otherwise, you will become a training example for SANS.""

Submission + - 2.5 mile borehole drilled into San Andreas Fault (stanford.edu)

Submitted by

iandoh

on Thursday October 04, 2007 @05:46PM

iandoh writes: "Cool research: Geologists at Stanford University and the US Geological Survey have drilled a 2.5 mile deep borehole into the San Andreas fault. They've extracted over one ton of rock from 2 miles down, and they'll be installing sensors down the length of the borehole. Via Stanford University News Service"

Submission + - Verdict Reached In RIAA Trial

Submitted by

jemtallon

on Thursday October 04, 2007 @05:44PM

jemtallon writes: "The jury in the previously mentioned Captiol v Thomas story has reached a verdict. They have found in favor of the plaintiffs, Capitol, and ordered that she pay a $222,000 fine for 24 cases of copyright infringement."

Submission + - March is Boycott the RIAA Month

Submitted by A Name Similar to Di on Friday February 23, 2007 @06:15PM

A Name Similar to Di writes: Sick of the RIAA's actions against consumers, Gizmodo has declared March Boycott the RIAA month

Gizmodo is declaring the month of March Boycott the RIAA month. We want to get the word out to as many people as humanly possible that we can all send a message by refusing to buy any album put out by an RIAA label. Am I saying you should start pirating music? Not at all. You can continue to support the artists you enjoy and respect in a number of ways.

Submission + - Gizmodo calls for RIAA boycott in March

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23, 2007 @04:33PM

An anonymous reader writes: Gadget review site Gizmodo is calling for a boycott of RIAA-signed bands in the month of March: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/putt ing-our-money-where-our-mouths-are-boycott-the-ria a-in-march-239281.php Instead, they suggest spending your greenbacks on indy artists, or attending concerts/buying merchandise from your favorite RIAA artist (which puts money in the artist's pocket), rather than buying recordings (and further enriching the fat cats at the RIAA). All I can say is, "hell yes!"

Submission + - Requesting retraction of Conservapedia story

Submitted by dpbsmith on Friday February 23, 2007 @04:02PM

dpbsmith writes: On second thought, it occurs to me that submitting a Slashdot story about a site whose servers are overwhelmed is... just plain stupid. If you wouldn't mind, please just ignore that submission. Thank you kindly.

Submission + - Conservapedia

Submitted by dpbsmith on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:57PM

dpbsmith writes: Conservapedia appears to be undergoing an interesting evolution. Or meltdown. The site was started last fall, initially as a project for about sixty homeschooled students to learn their assigned subject matter by writing encyclopedia articles about it.

However, its rather grandiose home page makes claims for the site that are extravagant compared to the reality. It bills itself as a "a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia." In reality, it has about three thousand "articles" that are amateurish dictionary definitions, extracted from the students' textbooks in an effort to rough out a topic list for the encyclopedia; a score of high-school-term-paper quality articles; and a score of personal essays by Andrew Schlafly on topics in which he has an interest, an expertise, and a fairly right-wing point of view.

After some admiring mentions in conservative blogs by writers who apparently did not really look at the site, it was discovered by non-conservative circles. It has been quite interesting to perform successive Google searchs on "Conservapedia" over the course of the last twenty-four hours, as the conservative mentions get overwhelmed by non-conservatives making mocking fun of the site.

At the moment there appears to be a vicious circle taking place. Vandals are being attracted to the site. The typical vandalism consists of adding over-the-top satiric parody of what the contributors imagine to be Conservapedia's point of view. Non-conservative readers are apparently failing to judge what is real (Conservapedia's bee in its bonnet about Wikipedia's occasional use of British spellings, and CE/BCE for dates instead of AD/BC) and what is vandalism ("However, God has recently revealed on His blog that Jesus is actually His nephew, not His son.")

Their server is currently quite slow. When it is possible to get in and access Recent Changes, there is some evidence that the administrators are not managing to block vandal accounts or delete joke pages as fast as they are being created.

At the moment it almost appears as if the founders of the site have provided free Wiki space to non-conservatives, who are using it to build a satiric website that mocks the founders' opinions.

On December 22nd, an article on Conservapedia was deleted from Wikipedia, either because it did not have a high enough Alexa rank to be considered notable, or because of Wikipedia's liberal bias. Unfortunately, the vandals apparently are not using the Alexa Toolbar, as Conservapedia's Alexa rank still stands at 1,985,594.

Submission + - Open Letter to Ballmer

Submitted by RelliK on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:53PM

RelliK writes: Hi,

I am tired of Ballmer's BS and I want to send a response. Somebody has to stand up and say something, and so far I have heard nothing from our "leaders". However, a response is necessary and must be circulated far and wide. I can't think of a better forum to place it on.

Mr Ballmer,

Lately you have made a lot of noise with your vague threats against Linux. Indeed you were quite livid in your assertions that Linux infringes on some of Microsoft's unspecified patents. However, no amount of yelling, dancing, or chair throwing can make up for one crucial deficiency in your claims: you have so far failed to specify what it is you are complaining about. So, Mr. Ballmer, if you want to be taken seriously, here is what we, the Linux community, want you to do:

Provide the list of all patents that you believe pertain to Linux.

For each alleged patent, explain why you believe it applies to Linux.

Provide the exact source code coordinates in Linux (file, version, lines of code) that you believe infringe on said patents.

Should any of your claims prove true, we would be happy to remove the offending code from Linux. However, in the absense of the above information, we can only conclude that you are making things up. The strategy of vague, unspecified allegations and innuendo has already failed for your minion, SCO. You, of all people, should know that, Mr. Ballmer. The Linux community shall not be intimidated.

Your assertion that Open Source has no respect for intellectual property rights is baseless. On the contrary, because the code is open for all to see, it is impossible to hide illicit proprietary code in Open Source software. The same cannot be said about proprietary developers who often "borrow" Open Source code. Indeed, Microsoft itself has time and again shown disdain for intellectual property rights of others. Most recent example of that is $1.5 billion judgment against Microsoft in a patent dispute with Alcatel-Lucent. Further, while purporting to assert patents against Linux, Microsoft is at the same time arguing before US Supreme Court that software cannot be patented.

In conclusion, Mr. Ballmer, the moment of truth has arrived: either specify your claims or stop your libelous accusations.

Submission + - The 50 Greates Female Video Game Characters

Submitted by

R22W13

on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:31PM

R22W13 writes: "TwitchGuru looks back through the history of video and PC games to find the heroines, femmes fatales and damsels in distress that have captured the hearts of gamers. From Zelda and Princess Peach to Alyx Vance and Lara Croft, here's a list of the 50 greatest female video game characters of all time."

Submission + - Is the exinction crisis real? Debate rages

Submitted by rhettb on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:25PM

rhettb writes: Two respected scientists say the extinction crisis is overblown in a paper published in Biotopica, launching a heated debate in conservation science circles. Their "rosy outlook" shows species extinction reaching 16-35% in tropical Africa and 21-24% in Indo-Malaya by 2030. Critics say their findings may "encourage complacency in the face of adversity" and undermine conservation efforts. The debate is largely based around computer models forecasting future forest cover.

Submission + - UK gamers charged more for inferior PS3

Submitted by

twofish

on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:14PM

twofish writes: "According to the Daily Telegraph Sony has said today that the European version of PlayStation 3 will play fewer PlayStation 2 games when it launches on March 23 compared with models launched earlier in Japan and America. "The backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as the U.S. and Japan models," a Sony spokesman said. Like Microsoft, Sony seems to not have a working currency converter either and the PS3 will also be £100 more than the US version."

Submission + - eBay hacker keeps busting through site's back door

Submitted by pacopico on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:14PM

pacopico writes: A hacker specializing in eBay cracks has once again managed to masquerade as a company official on the site's message boards, according to this story on The Register. A company spokesman denies that "Vladuz's" repeated assaults on eBay point to a larger problem with the site's security. Of course, eBay two days ago claimed to have found a way to block Vladuz altogether, only to see him pop up again. Is eBay Vladuz the online version of the Exxon Valdez?

Submission + - Superbots Cooperate for Many Feats

Submitted by anthemaniac on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:06PM

anthemaniac writes: Wei-Min Shen at USC has taken a Lego approach to robots and tossed in some intelligence to create "superbots." While each autonomous module is no more talented than a Roomba or even the iDog, one piece can find another and self-assemble. Combined, they can form a wheel, climb a rope, or walk like a human. The videos show various combinations and feats.

Submission + - Blizzard Sues Bot Creator; Seeks Customer Info

Submitted by on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:05PM

An anonymous reader writes: After filing a prayer for relief to continue the selling of his WoWGlider, an automation bot for Blizzard's fanatical World of Warcraft, Michael Donnelly has again found himself in some deep water: Blizzard has retorted demanding WoWGlider be shut down, his URL, and financial compensation, but more interestingly they want all of WoWGlider's sales records. Presumably, Blizzard will cross-reference this with their current user database and ban anyone who bought the program. Furthermore, Blizzard claims that WoWGlider violates copyrights by accessing the game client's RAM space, a process which is also done by every anti-virus program. So why is there no Blizzard vs. Symantec?

Submission + - How To Download From Usenet With Your Mac

Submitted by

The Foo

on Friday February 23, 2007 @02:48PM

The Foo writes: "Welcome back to part two of my tutorial on how to get Usenet access with your Mac. In the first article, I outlined the tools you need to get you online and accessing Usenet. In this article I will continue and explain the process of acquiring content. After you've signed up for accounts with a Usenet provider, an indexer and downloaded the right software, I can now go ahead and show you how to get some content... Continue Reading Here"

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