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The Media

Submission + - Journalists Can't Hide News Anymore 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Robert Niles at the Online Journalism Review comments on the story about the 13-year-old girl who took her own life after making friends with a boy she'd met on MySpace who turned on her. The boy didn't exist. 'He' was the creation of the mother of one of the girl's former friends. But the newspaper didn't name the woman, citing concerns for *her* teen daughter. Bloggers went nuts, and soon uncovered the woman's name, her address, phone number and business registration records and plastered them all over the Web. "The lessons for journalists? First, we can't restrict access to information anymore. The crowd will work together to find whatever we withhold," wrote Niles. "Second, I wonder if that the decision to withhold the other mother's name didn't help enflame the audience, by frustrating it and provoking it to do the work of discovering her identity." Here are links to the original story on the girl's suicide, to one of the bloggers who uncovered the woman's identity, and to another look at the journalistic issues involved in naming names."
Software

Submission + - Obama Pledges Support for Open Document Formats (consortiuminfo.org)

Submitted by
Andy Updegrove
Andy Updegrove writes: "ODF first made the headlines in Massachusetts when presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was its governor. Now, another presidential candidate has pledged his support for them as well. On November 14th, Barack Obama revealed his detailed IT plan for a more open and technically enabled government in a speech at Google's Mountainview campus. In that speech, he said: "It's no coincidence that one of the most secretive Administrations in history has favored special interests and pursued policies that could not stand up to sunlight. As President, I'll change that. I'll put government data online in universally accessible formats." In calling for open formats, Obama has introduced an IT hot potato into the presidential debate that has already riled the waters in multiple state legislatures and been the subject of heavy lobbying by vendors. Whether other candidates in general — and Mitt Romney in particular — will respond in kind or opt to keep their distance remains to be seen."
The Gimp

Submission + - GIMP 2.4 released! (gimp.org)

Submitted by
MrDrBob
MrDrBob writes: "Love it or hate it, version 2.4 of our Marmite-favoured graphics editor has been released, and includes quite a few big changes. The selection tools have been rewritten from scratch, including a new way of selecting things with round corners, as requested by web designers. Better zooming code means that whole lines of your image will no longer disappear when zoomed out, and new colour management code should be welcomed by digital photo artists. The GIMP also includes a new Tango-style icon set, which goes hand-in-hand with the redesigned website. Unfortunately, GEGL integration still isn't anywhere to be found, but perhaps it'll make it in a later release."
Security

Submission + - The new ID theft marketplace: Who's paying for you (cio.com)

Submitted by tpimental
tpimental writes: For about $1000, hackers can subscribe to a new service, which lets them view the online transactions, browser history and login accounts of any infected computer. Utilizing the Gozi Trojan to transmit captured form data to a commerce front-end called 76service, hackers have created a marketplace for identity theft. Subscribers to the service can then mine the online transactions of victims for high-value data like bank logins and other personally identifying information.

78service ushers in a new era for identity theft where credit card numbers and passwords are traded as efficiently as stocks.
SuSE

Submission + - openSUSE 10.3 public release

Submitted by Shizawana
Shizawana writes: The latest version of openSUSE is being released today. Here is a sneak peak of all the new features and additions, including highly anticipated changes to the YaST package management.
Security

Submission + - Comparing OpenBSD vs. SELinux (kerneltrap.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: KernelTrap offers an interesting summary of a lengthy debate on OpenBSD's -misc mailing list comparing the security features built into OpenBSD versus the security offered by the Linux kernel's SELinux feature. The main arguments presented against SELinux centered around its complexity and the difficulty of defining a secure policy. 'The first thing people usually do with SELinux is turn it off', suggests the article, noting that the ease with which it can be turned off is another security shortcoming. By contrast, OpenBSD offers numerous security features that are always enabled with minimal overhead, including propolice stack protection, random library mappings, proactive privilege separation, W^X, and systrace.
Windows

Submission + - Microsoft loses anti-trust appeal

Submitted by
Kugrian
Kugrian writes: "Microsoft has lost its appeal against a record 497m euro (£343m; $690m) fine imposed by the European Commission in a long-running competition dispute. The European Court of First Instance upheld the ruling that Microsoft had abused its dominant market position."
Security

Submission + - Skype reads /etc/passwd 1

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: According to this post in the Skype Linux Forums Skype tries to read out the /etc/passwd as well as some other files and directories. At this time, there is no official statement from Skype concerning this matter.
Linux Business

Submission + - PWC migrates to OpenBSD after crippling by Windows (computerworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by
Renegade88
Renegade88 writes: "After months of network failures and depleted IT budget, newly hired IT manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Japan was "forced" to migrate half of the company's Windows servers to OpenBSD to stabilize and secure their network. After eliminating the frequent downtime and data loss PWC had experienced for months, Mark Uemura was ordered to reinstate their Checkpoint firewall for political reasons. The Checkpoint server was later overwhelmed by a network virus so rather than taking it offline again, PWC placed an OpenBSD firewall in front of the Checkpoint Firewall! Mark's advice: "My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it — don't ask! [Management] will thank you later.""
Networking

Submission + - Mini-ITX Clusters?

Submitted by
HesAnIndieRocker
HesAnIndieRocker writes: "I've recently become interested in experimenting with Linux cluster technologies (databases, distributed file systems, etc) but have been held back by the availability of cheap server hardware. Via's MiniITX C7-based motherboards look very promising, but all of the enclosures I have seen for the platform look like stereo components or traditional PCs. Are there any solutions out there for putting multiple boards in a single box with shared power and space for hard drives, or must the aspiring supercomputer owner build everything themselves? Is there a cluster hobbyist market or are they only built (and priced) for the enterprise?"
Windows

Submission + - Vista Work-Around Highlights Security Flaws (pcworld.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "A simple trick has netted some developers the ability to load unsigned drivers by simply registering a tool that loads its own unsigned driver and allows any unsigned code to be placed as a driver in the kernel. And the tool is freely available. Probably more damaging that releasing this tool into the wild is what one of the developers had to say. He anonymously commented about this particular security feature of Vista and that it "doesn't prevent malware, it just prohibits freedom to choose. A signed file uniquely identifies the company that developed that file, but when companies can be created and registered in jurisdictions known for protecting the privacy of company founders and directors you have to ask what does driver signing actually represent? While driver signing certificates can be revoked, new certificates, with enough money, can be created faster than it takes to change a file's signature. If this is indeed the case, then it is the hobbyists and home user that end up paying the cost.""
Biotech

Submission + - Americans Clueless About Cancer Risks (cancer.org)

Submitted by
Invisible Pink Unicorn
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes: "A study conducted by the American Cancer Society found that a surprising number of Americans believe scientifically dubious claims concerning cancer, and that the groups with the greatest burden of cancer are the most likely to be misinformed. For example, the majority of survey respondents didn't think smoking was more likely to cause lung cancer than pollution — despite 87% of lung cancer cases being due to smoking. The most interesting finding was that people who described themselves as knowing the most about cancer were more likely to have false beliefs. Participants who labeled themselves as "very informed" about cancer were more likely to believe underwire bras cause breast cancer, or that quitting smoking did nothing to reduce cancer risks. The article abstract is availabe from the journal Cancer."

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