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Security

Network Security While Traveling? 312

Posted by kdawson from the moving-duck dept.
truesaer writes "I'll be spending all of next year backpacking through South America. In the past I've used Internet cafes while away, but this time I plan to bring a netbook and rely primarily on Wi-Fi hotspots. I'll be facing the same issues and risks that business travelers in hotels and airports face, as well as those encountered by millions of other backpackers, gap-year travelers, and students. Since my trip is so long I'll have no choice but to access my banking, credit card, and investment accounts on public networks. I will not have a system at home to connect through. Other than an effective firewall, a patched system, and the use of SSL, what else should I do to protect my information? Keep in mind that many places have very poor bandwidth and latency."
The Internet

Virgin Media To Trial Filesharing Monitoring In UK 280

Posted by timothy from the deep-pocket-inspection dept.
Shokaster writes "The Register reports that Virgin Media are to begin monitoring file sharing using a deep packet inspection system, CView, provided by Deltica, a BAE subsidiary. The trial will cover about 40% of customers, although those involved will not be informed. CView's deep packet inspection is the same technology that powered Phorm's advertising system. Initially Virgin Media's implementation will focus on music sharing and will inspect packets to determine whether the content is licensed or unlicensed, based on data provided by the record industry. Virgin Media emphasised that records will not be kept on individual customers and that data on the level of copyright infringement will be aggregated and anonymised."
Books

Asimov Estate Authorizes New I, Robot Books 426

Posted by timothy from the automatic-writing dept.
daria42 writes "In a move guaranteed to annoy long-term science fiction fans, the estate of legendary science fiction author Isaac Asimov, who passed away in 1992, has authorized a trilogy of sequels to his beloved I, Robot short story series, to be written by relatively unknown fantasy author Mickey Zucker Reichert. The move is already garnering opposition online. 'Isaac Asimov died forty years after they were first written. If he had wanted to follow them up, he would have. The author's intentions need to be respected here,' writes sci-fi/fantasy book site Keeping the Door."
Communications

GMail Experiences Serious Outage 408

Posted by timothy from the works-here-never-mind dept.
JacobSteelsmith was one of many readers to note an ongoing problem with Gmail: "As I type this, GMail is experiencing a major outage. The application status page says there is a problem with GMail affecting a majority of its users. It states a resolution is expected within the next 1.2 hours (no, not a typo on my part). However, email can still be accessed via POP or IMAP, but not, it appears, through an Android device such as the G1." It's also affecting corporate users: Reader David Lechnyr writes "We run a hosted Google Apps system and have been receiving 502 Server Error responses for the past hour. The unusual thing about this is that our Google phone support rep (which paid accounts get) indicated that this outage is also affecting Google employees as well, making it difficult to coordinate."
Software

Red Hat Spins Off JBoss 2.x As HornetQ 50

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the strip-mine-rename-and-release dept.
Several sources are reporting that Red Hat has spun off the 2.x release of the JBoss messaging protocol as HornetQ. The 1.x version of JBoss is still being supported in maintenance mode and will continue to be known by its original name. "HornetQ is an open source project to build a multi-protocol, embeddable, high performance, clustered, asynchronous messaging system. HornetQ is an example of Message Oriented Middleware. [...] HornetQ is designed with flexibility in mind: It's elegant POJO based design has minimal third party dependencies: Run HornetQ as a stand-alone messaging broker, run it in integrated in your favorite JEE application server, or run it embedded inside your own application. It's up to you."
Space

South Korea's First Rocket Fails To Reach Set Orbit 101

Posted by kdawson from the ground-control-to-major-tom dept.
Matt_dk writes "The first satellite launched by South Korea failed to reach its designated orbit pattern on Tuesday, the NY Times is reporting. The two-staged KSLV-1 rocket, built in cooperation with Russia, failed to deliver the 100-kilogram oceanic and atmospheric research satellite into its target orbit. The rocket was launched from the Naro Space Center, 300 miles south of the capital Seoul. 'The failure to push the satellite into its intended orbit was announced by Ahn Myong-man, the minister of education, science and technology, at a news conference. Mr. Ahn gave no further details. But South Korean news outlets, citing unidentified sources, said the satellite broke away from the rocket about 22 miles farther from the Earth than had been intended.'"
Windows

Behind the 4GB Memory Limit In 32-Bit Windows 756

Posted by kdawson from the we-can-remember-it-for-you-wholesale dept.
An anonymous reader points us to a very detailed post by Geoff Chappell, first put up early this year, explaining how the 4GB memory limit commonly bandied about for 32-bit Windows (he is writing mainly about Vista) is more of a licensing preference than an architectural limit. The article outlines how Chappell unlocked his system to use all the memory that is present, but cautions that such hackery is ill-advised for several reasons, including legal ones. "If you want [to be able to use more than 4GB in Vista] without contrivance, then pester Microsoft for an upgrade of the license data or at least for a credible, detailed reasoning of its policy for licensing your use of your computer's memory. ... [C]onsider Windows Server 2008. For the loader and kernel in Windows Vista SP1 (and, by the way, for the overwhelming majority of all executables), the corresponding executable in Windows Server 2008 is exactly the same, byte for byte. Yet Microsoft sells 32-bit Windows Server 2008 for use with as much as 64GB of memory. Does Microsoft really mean to say that when it re-badges these same executables as Windows Vista SP1, they suddenly acquire an architectural limit of 4GB? Or is it that a driver for Windows Server 2008 is safe for using with memory above 4GB as long as you don't let it interact with the identical executables from Windows Vista SP1?"
The Internet

Wikipedia To Require Editing Approval 453

Posted by kdawson from the knock-knock-who's-there-anonymous dept.
The NY Times reports on an epochal move by Wikipedia — within weeks, the formerly freewheeling encyclopedia will begin requiring editor approval for all edits to articles about living people. "The new feature, called 'flagged revisions,' will require that an experienced volunteer editor for Wikipedia sign off on any change made by the public before it can go live. Until the change is approved — or in Wikispeak, flagged — it will sit invisibly on Wikipedia's servers, and visitors will be directed to the earlier version. ... The new editing procedures... have been applied to the entire German-language version of Wikipedia during the last year... Although Wikipedia has prevented anonymous users from creating new articles for several years now, the new flagging system crosses a psychological Rubicon. It will divide Wikipedia's contributors into two classes — experienced, trusted editors, and everyone else — altering Wikipedia's implicit notion that everyone has an equal right to edit entries."
Microsoft

Microsoft Files "Emergency Motion" To Ship Word 221

Posted by kdawson from the my-word dept.
adeelarshad82 writes "Several days after a judge ordered Microsoft to halt sales of Word and handed down $290M in fines, the software giant has moved to stop the ban. On Friday Microsoft filed an emergency motion to stop the judgment and waive the bond requirement, according to court filings. The actual document was filed under seal, so the full contents of the request have not yet been made public."

Comment Re:This will never happen. (Score 1) 183

by Mag7 (#29063307) Attached to: Australian ISPs Soon To Become Copyright Cops

Please lets vote Turnbull in, enough is enough (already)

If a Double Dissolution happens Turnbull (or another Lib, I doubt Turnbull could run) that might just happen, so long as no-one utters the words "work choices" they should get in.

You assume the majority of voters are concerned about this single issue. Most wouldn't even know there is an issue. Others honestly think filtering and stopping "pirates" (who fund terrorism, didn't you know) is a good idea that must be done by the government (think of the children!).

Nope, unfortunately the people who understand the pitfalls of both are vastly in the minority.
Space

A Planet That Orbits Its Star the Wrong Way 257

Posted by timothy from the didn't-get-the-memo dept.
Smivs writes "BBC News is reporting that astronomers have discovered the first planet that orbits in the opposite direction to the spin of its star. Planets form out of the same swirling gas cloud that creates a star, so they are expected to orbit in the same direction that the star rotates. The new planet is thought to have been flung into its 'retrograde' orbit by a close encounter with either another planet or with a passing star. The work has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal for publication. Co-author Coel Hellier, from Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, said planets with retrograde orbits were thought to be rare. 'With everything [in the star system] swirling around the same way and the star spinning the same way, you have to do quite a lot to it to make it go in the opposite direction.' Professor Hellier said a near-collision was probably responsible for this planet's unusual orbit. 'If you have a near-collision, then you'll have a large gravitational slingshot from that interaction,' he explained. 'This is the likeliest explanation. But it might be possible you can do it by gradually perturbing the orbit through the influence of a second planet. So far, we haven't found any evidence of a second planet there.'"

Comment A little refreshing (Score 1) 142

by Mag7 (#29049571) Attached to: EA Looking Into Reviving Classic Games?

I have to say that's a refreshingly astute observation coming from a large entertainment corp, one that like so many entertainment companies so often takes the safe option of flogging a concept, genre or property to death.

In my experience he's right about revisiting old games. I've fired up a few of my old favourites, and still play some arcade games with MAME, but the memories and feelings of nostalgia almost always are far better than playing the actual game. Among other things, taste changes with age.

If they were to do this right, you could mix the nostalgia of your experience playing the old version with some of the best things of today's consoles or PCs, like new inputdev (wii anyone). Throw in some astute in jokes and tributes to elements of the original (remember how Day of the Tentacle had the full version of Maniac Mansion as an in game surprise) and you could have a winner.

Of course, we're all a bit jaded by bad experiences with remakes and sequels (and those god-awful prequels- you know the ones...)

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