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Comment Re:Unconstitutional (Score 1) 1367

by dave1g (#26028453) Attached to: Time To Discuss Drug Prohibition?

Previously, the 18th amendment banned it, so the only way to lift the ban was to repeal that amendment... with another amendment. Both texts are still in the constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-first_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

Having not read either of these wiki articles, I'm not sure why the constitutional amendment process was used to ban it in the first place instead of just a regular act of congress. Probably because at the time the interstate commerce clause http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_commerce was not as powerful as it is today (it gained its power in supreme court in the fight over FDR's new deal I believe which is after the prohibition era)
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - Rack Mounted PS3s Power Game Server (playstation.com)

Submitted by
DeadBugs
DeadBugs writes: "The servers powering the online version of the new game Warhawk, are actually rack mounted Playstation 3s. In addition to being able to host the game on your own system, you can connect to these PS3 clusters for 24 or 32 player games. Additionally Warhawk will be released on both a standard Blu-ray disc or for about $20 less by downloading it from PSN."
NASA

Submission + - Space Shuttle Fuel Powers New BMW Luxury Sedan (local6.com)

Submitted by Rio
Rio writes: A first-ever liquid hydrogen-powered luxury sedan was tested by NASA at Kennedy Space Center this week. The new BMW Hydrogen 7 sedan uses the same fuel powering the space shuttle to reduce CO2 emissions by 90 percent, according to a news release. "It is the high-energy density of liquid hydrogen that allows the space shuttle to be accelerated into space," said Karl Heinz Ziwica, vice president of engineering at BMW. "The same concept is used to power the BMW Hydrogen 7."

Submission + - How long do you wait for replies to e-mail?

Submitted by
tinkertim
tinkertim writes: "What I am asking has been asked many times before. I've noticed that people (in general, through my own dealings) seem to be growing increasingly impatient (seems more so over the last year). I'd like to ask slashdot readers, simply, how long does it take before you feel that someone 'blew you off' by not replying to your e-mail and how upset do you get when this appears to happen?"
Google

Submission + - Gmail Increases Capacity to 9 GiB Per User 5

Submitted by
Chris Chiasson
Chris Chiasson writes: "I was a little surprised to see that I was only using 7% of my Gmail storage capacity. Then I read all of the message: "You are currently using 680 MB (7%) of your 9030 MB." That's only 8.82 GiB, but I rounded up for the title. Anyone else?"
Movies

Submission + - Netflix's streaming movies service has been hacked (tvsquad.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It looks like someone has figured out a way to hack Netflix's DRM protection in their streaming Watch Now movies. This is a great day for fair-use advocates, as we can all now play the Netflix Watch Now movies on any OS we like (the DRM-wrapped files will only play on the latest version of Windows Media Player and Microsoft Vista or XP SP 2). More info: http://www.tvsquad.com/2007/08/06/hackers-discover -how-to-download-streaming-movies-from-netflix
Businesses

Journal Journal: Big TechCos cheating H-1B visa laws, American Workers

Journal by Bushido Hacks
Acording to Paul McNarma of NetworkWorld.com A conference was held in May this year by a marketing firm Cohen & Grigsby to on how to NOT hire American tech workers but hire foreign workers WITHOUT stating benefits and intial pay intentionally. The goal was to undermind the H-1B visa immigration laws enforced in this country.
The Courts

Oklahoma Security Expert Attacks RIAA Claims 280

Posted by kdawson from the resting-on-shifting-sands dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "A group of Oklahoma University students has made a motion to vacate the ex parte order the RIAA had obtained compelling the university to turn over their names and addresses. In support of their motion was the expert witness declaration (PDF) of a computer security and forensics expert who essentially attacked the entire premise of the RIAA's lawsuit, characterizing the declaration upon which the RIAA based its motion as 'factually erroneous' and 'misleading.' Among other things he pointed out that 'An individual cannot be uniquely identified by an IP address,' and that 'Many computers can be connected to the Internet with identical IP addresses as long as they remain behind control points.' The students are represented by the same Oklahoma lawyer who recently obtained a award for $68,000-plus in attorneys fees against the RIAA in Capitol v. Foster."
Privacy

Submission + - Google Toolbar Always Reports Your URLs to Google

Submitted by Anonymous
Anonymous writes: The Google Toolbar in Firefox is sending every URL I visit to Google, even though I'm not logged in to my Google account, even though I have a web history turned off for my account, and even though I have Safe Browsing/Enhanced Protection mode turned off (hidden away in Firefox's Tools > Options > Security > "Tell me if the site I'm visiting is suspected of forgery". I can see the URL transmitted to Google with the Live HTTP Headers Firefox plugin.

This is a Privacy and Security issue. The Google privacy policy clearly states in the first bullet that the Toolbar will not transmit URLs to Google unless I explicitly tell it to.

—
Information we collect

        * The Google Toolbar automatically sends only standard, limited information to Google, which may be retained in Google's server logs. It does not send any information about the web pages you visit ( e.g., the URL), unless you use Toolbar's advanced features or use Safe Browsing in Enhanced Protection mode. You do not need to provide any personal information in order to download and use the Google Toolbar.
—

I have explicitly turned off all of these features, but it still sends URLs.

Here's an example: if I visit a web site like http://wikipedia.org/ , and Live HTTP Headers shows (some info masked):

—
http://toolbarqueries.google.com/search?sourceid=n avclient-ff&features=Rank&client=navclient-auto-ff &googleip=O;64.233.161.99;146&ch=...&q=info:http%3 A%2F%2Fwikipedia.org%2F

GET /search?sourceid=navclient-ff&features=Rank&client =navclient-auto-ff&googleip=O;64.233.161.99;146&ch =...&q=info:http%3A%2F%2Fwikipedia.org%2F HTTP/1.1
Host: toolbarqueries.google.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5) Gecko/20070718 Fedora/2.0.0.5- 1.fc7 Firefox/2.0.0.5 pango-text GoogleToolbarFF 3.0.20070525
Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,tex t/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q= 0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive
Cookie: __utma=...

HTTP/1.x 200 OK
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Server: GWS/2.1
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Encoding: gzip
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 15:32:25 GMT
—

Clearly, a request was sent to Google with my URL and Google accepted the request, in clear violation of their Privacy Policy. Worse yet, it sends the url in the clear! So if there is any session or security information on the URL, it is there for the world and Google to see.

My Google Toolbar, as much as I used to love it, disappears today.
Slashdot.org

Submission + - eSwarm.com harnessing the buying power (eswarm.com)

Submitted by
Bryant
Bryant writes: "What started out as an idea to group or "swarm" people together to buy health insurance has now become eSwarm.com http://www.eswarm.com/ a creative internet platform to purchase anything, from health insurance and prescription drugs to IPods. eSwarm is a small Boulder, Colorado based internet company hoping to bring buyers and suppliers together, as well as give back to charities. Through harnessing the buying power of large, like-minded tightly-knit groups, eSwarm intends to become the world's pre-eminent demand driven platform. By coordinating individual purchases into bulk orders, eSwarm allows individuals to receive volume discounts without actually having to buy in volume. In addition, eSwarm provides charities and organizations with an innovative fundraising tool. It accomplishes this by allowing creators of swarms to stipulate that a percentage of the total sale is donated to their charity of choice. eSwarm has created a whole new unique way of purchasing online. eSwarm officially went live on Tuesday, July 10 at 10:07am. "The excitement exploded into cheers when eSwarm launched," CEO Tim Newcomb said. "eSwarm is not an e-commerce site, but a global economic revolution." How it works Buyers — or swarmers, as eSwarm.com calls them — log onto the website and register for a free account and within minutes they can begin to join current swarms. The swarms can range from nearly any consumer good, debt refinancing, pre-paid gift and debit cards, to even affordable health insurance. If there's nothing that interests you then start your own swarm for the product or service you want. In creating your own swarm you get to choose your price and terms as well as pick the charity of your choice to benefit from the swarm. Go out and promote your swarm, because the more people that join your swarm the more goes to your charity and to you. Once the swarm has grown and is soon to end, then sit back and watch your BidBattle begin between different suppliers wanting to fulfill your swarm from all over the world. Still don't get it? Go to eSwarm.com and click on the How it Works tab. Interested in being a supplier? Log onto eSwarm.com and register. This idea has potential to revolutionize how people spend their money, and not just online. Why buy a product in a store when you can buy it on eSwarm, which benefits local, national or even global charities. Much of the eSwarm anticipation has been a result of the recent Chinese craze, tuangou, or team buying. Today dozens of team buying websites exist in China that unite consumers looking to purchase the same items and then set up dates and times to meet at the various retailers to demand volume discounts. "The latest buying craze in China excites us," Newcomb said. "It gives our organization just another reason to believe that our timing is better than ever.""

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