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Cellphones

Cell Phone Interception At Def Con 95

Posted by Soulskill from the can-i-hear-you-now dept.
ChrisPaget writes "I'm planning a pretty significant demonstration of GSM insecurity at Defcon next week, where I'll intercept and record cellular calls made by my attendees, live on-stage, no user-input required. As you can imagine, intercepting cellphones is a Very Big Deal in the eyes of the law; this blog post is an attempt to reassure everyone that their privacy is being taken seriously despite the nature of the demo. I'm not just making it up either — the EFF have helped significantly with the details."
Image

Verizon Charged Marine's Widow an Early Termination Fee 489

Posted by samzenpus from the literal-charges dept.
In a decision that was reversed as soon as someone with half a brain in their PR department learned about it, Verizon charged a widow a $350 early termination fee. After the death of her marine husband, Michaela Brummund decided to move back to her home town to be with her family. Verizon doesn't offer any coverage in the small town so Michaela tried to cancel her contract, only to be hit with an early termination fee. From the article: "'I called them to cancel. I told them the situation with my husband. I even said I would provide a death certificate,' Michaela said."

Comment Bravo to FACIL, Cyrille and his team! (Score 4, Informative) 172

by MagicFab (#32457186) Attached to: Free Software Wins Court Battle in Quebec

No doubt the court decision documents will help many people understand what Free software is and how it can be considered for government use.

Full (French) PDF of the court decision is available here:
http://blogs.savoirfairelinux.net/cyrilleberaud/KMBT35020100602152155.pdf

English background information:
http://www.fabianrodriguez.com/blog/2008/03/17/gnulinux-integrator-complains-to-supreme-court-about-quebec-government-illegaly-upgrading-to-vista-without-proper-rfps/

Comment Re:It's 10.04 LTS (not "10.04") (Score 1) 567

by MagicFab (#32094524) Attached to: Ubuntu Linux 10.04 Review (Lucid Lynx)

In fact I've done a few hundred for testing in every release, including for my main computers use at home and on the job (as a senior support analyst at Canonical).

All Canonical Staff are strongly encouraged to run the development release when it enters beta. I'd say once it's reached RC it's fairly safe for desktop production and server testing. If you follow a few known rules the chances it will go wrong are minimal. Of course I am highly biased and can only ask help to myself ;)
Open Source

Open Source Developer Knighted 101

Posted by samzenpus from the knights-who-say-free dept.
unixfan writes "Georg Greve, developer of Open Document Format and active FOSS developer, has received a knighthood in Germany for his work. From the article: 'Some weeks ago I received news that the embassy in Berne had unsuccessfully been trying to contact me under FSFE's old office address in Zurich. This was a bit odd and unexpected. So you can probably understand my surprise to be told by the embassy upon contacting them that on 18 December 2009 I had been awarded the Cross of Merit on ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) by the Federal Republic of Germany. As you might expect, my first reaction was one of disbelief. I was, in fact, rather shaken. You could also say shocked. Quick Wikipedia research revealed this to be part of the orders of knighthood, making this a Knight's Cross.'"

Comment It's 10.04 LTS (not "10.04") (Score 4, Informative) 567

by MagicFab (#32029878) Attached to: Ubuntu Linux 10.04 Review (Lucid Lynx)

This Ubuntu release is 10.04 LTS (for "Long Term Support").

Getting the RC version or the latest daily ISO and upgrading from that is functionally equivalent to waiting for the final ISO to be released and installing it.

Anyone updating their packages from a recent enough beta or RC of Ubuntu will end up having the equivalent of the release.

In case it's not clear, it makes sense NOT to wait for the final release.

Comment appbrain.com (Score 1) 226

by MagicFab (#31729406) Attached to: Android's "Flea Market" Needs Urgent Attention

..lets me search, install, share apps. It also leaves spam apps out and recommends new ones quite accurately. I bet more, better, competing marketplace web UIs are just around the corner. Google not providing one is, if nothing else, a great opportunity.

Maybe try some of this stuff before writing about it?

Here's my apps list:
http://www.appbrain.com/user/MagicFab/apps-on-the-nexus-one

The provided Marketplace app to search and install from the phone really is only one of many ways to get apps on such phones.

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