Slashdot regular Bennett Haselton writes "Websense, a US-based Internet-censoring software maker, claims not to sell to foreign governments that are censoring Internet access for all of their citizens. But the OpenNet Initiative reports that national ISPs in Yemen have been using Websense to filter Internet access for at least the past four years. Will Websense revoke their license? And what would happen then?" Update: 08/10 21:01 GMT by KD : Bennett adds, "After the story ran, Websense sent me this update." "Since we were informed about the potential use of our products by Yemeni ISPs based on government-imposed Internet restrictions in Yemen, we have investigated this potential non-compliance with our anti-censorship policy. Because our product operates based on a database system, we are able to block updated database downloads to locations and to end users where the use of our product would violate law or our corporate policies. We believe that we have identified the specific product subscriptions that are being used for Web filtering by ISPs in Yemen, and in accordance with our policy against government-imposed censorship, we have taken action to discontinue the database downloads to the Yemeni ISPs."

arbitraryaardvark writes "An Ohio swinger's magazine objects to keeping proof on file that its advertisers are over 18. I reported here in 2007 that the 6th circuit struck down U.S.C. Title 18, Section 2257 as a First Amendment violation. The full 6th circuit has now overturned that ruling. The case might continue to the Supreme Court. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports."

TheProcess writes "Back in February 2003, IBM predicted that AMD would be dead in 5 years (original article here), with IBM and Intel the only remaining players in the chip market. Well, 5 years have passed and AMD is still alive. However, its finances and stock price have taken a serious beating over the last year. AMD was once a darling in this community — the plucky, up-and-coming challenger to the Intel behemoth. Will AMD still be here in 5 years? Can they pose a credible competitive threat to Intel's dominance? Do they still have superior but unappreciated technology? Or are they finally old hat? Can they really recover?"

penfold69 writes "Dave Tomlinson is one of the network gurus at PlusNET PLC, a Tier-2 ISP in the UK. He recently put up a blog post about the ramifications of the BBC iPlayer for the ISP industry in the UK. The post makes some very interesting reading regarding the bandwidth usage triggered by the iPlayer, and raises timely questions about the Net Neutrality debate. The Register also picked up on this story with a good review of who is going to have to pay for all this legal video streaming."

Parallax Blue writes "Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who risked his life seeking to set records in high-tech balloons, gliders and jets, was declared dead Friday, 5 months after he vanished while flying in an ordinary small plane. The self-made business tycoon, who in 2002 became the first person to circle the world solo in a balloon, was last seen Sept. 3 after taking off in a single-engine plane from an airstrip near Yerington, Nev., heading toward Bishop, Calif. He was 63."

Multiple users have written to tell us of an LA Times report that an asteroid may hit Mars on January 30th. The asteroid is roughly 160 feet across, and JPL-based researchers say that it will have a 1-in-75 chance of striking Mars. Those odds are very high for this type of event, and scientists are hoping to witness an impact of a similar scope to the Tunguska disaster. From the LA Times: "Because scientists have never observed an asteroid impact -- the closest thing being the 1994 collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter -- such a collision on Mars would produce a 'scientific bonanza,' Chesley said."

Tech.Luver writes "Jay Levy says he has been stung by Apple's iPhone pact with AT&T after he took an iPhone on a Mediterranean cruise. They didn't use their phones, but when they got back they had a 54-page monthly bill of nearly $4,800 from AT&T Wireless. The problem was that their three iPhones were racking up a bill for data charges using foreign phone charges. The iPhone regularly updates e-mail, even while it's off, so that all the messages will be available when the user turns it on. ""

grrlscientist writes "Yesterday, I received the devastating news that Alex the African Grey parrot, who was both a study subject and colleague to Irene Pepperberg, died unexpectedly at 31 years of age. 'Even though Alex was a research animal, he was much more than that. This species of parrot generally lives to be 50-60 years old, so Alex was only middle-aged when he died. According to some reports I have read, it is possible that Alex might have succumbed to Aspergillosis, a fungal infection of the lungs that he has battled in the past. However, the cause of death will not be known until after a necropsy has been completed... Alex's veterinarian is returning from vacation to personally conduct this necrospy.'"

foniksonik writes "'On 28 June, Taser International of Arizona announced plans to equip robots with stun guns ... the new stun-capable robots could be used against civilians.' Non-lethal weapons experts are concerned that the robots will have to stun the suspected criminal for longer periods of time while awaiting human police to come make the official arrest. "If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?" asks Steve Wright, a security expert at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK."

Melugo writes to let us know that Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned that US plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe would force Moscow to target its weapons against Europe. This reader notes: "It feels like the Cold War all over again." "'If the American nuclear potential grows in European territory, we have to give ourselves new targets in Europe,' Putin said... 'It is up to our military to define these targets, in addition to defining the choice between ballistic and cruise missiles.'"

jrieth50 noted that a method of using geometric shapes combined with color to store up to 256GB of data on a sheet of paper or plastic. The article says "Files such as text, images, sounds and video clips are encoded in 'rainbow format' as colored circles, triangles, squares and so on, and printed as dense graphics on paper at a density of 2.7GB per square inch. The paper can then be read through a specially developed scanner and the contents decoded into their original digital format and viewed or played."

Rocky Mann writes "Jesper Johansson, a security guru for Microsoft, is leaving the company to join Amazon.com. Johansson served for some five years as a 'senior security strategist', and is considered one of the world's leading experts on how to protect installations of Windows." From the article: "Johansson is also an advocate for the use of safe-passwords techniques in the enterprise. At the height of the WMF zero-day attacks earlier in 2006, Johansson offered measured advice on the use of unofficial patches and he was constantly on the move, traveling around the world to help customers figure out how to use Microsoft's products securely."