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Comment Complete translation of linked article (Score 1) 252

by schnipschnap (#25051139) Attached to: Bavarian Police Seeking Skype Trojan Informant

Responding to first post for extra visibility. As usual, no time for proof-reading :P

[Federal trojan]: Pirate Party's Home Searched
The search for an informant from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice

Bavarian police officers have searched the home of the spokesman of the German Pirate Party, Ralph Hunderlach. They were searching for an informant from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, who gave the privacy activists and computer experts information about the probably illegally used trojan to listen into skype conversations.

The Bavarian federal state government is pressuring the Pirate Party with the search of its spokesman's home. "The Bavarian authorities have worked without any legal foundation on a trojan and are now trying to silence their critics", said Udo Vetter, a lawyer and law-blogger to the Frankfurter Rundschau.

On September 11 at 5:45 [probably AM] police men appeared in the spokesman's home and threatened to remove every piece of furniture if he didn't tell them where he got the information. Hunderlach is at the same time political business man [WTF] of the Regional Association Bavaria of the Pirate Party. "His home was searched to find out the identify of the informant", said Thorsten Wirth, chair of the Pirate Party Hessen [a state in Germany] to Golem.de. It wasn't possible to reveal the search of his home earlier to the public because Hunderlach was busy with his job.

The person who gave the documents to the Pirate Party however was assured of the securedness of every bit of information that could identify him from unwanted access (by the Party). Another Pirate-activist's server that was also confiscated was also secured using strong encryption.

The question is "if there maybe might be an excess of governmental activity here", said the former Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum (FDP), who is now a civil liberties activist to the Frankfurter Rundschau.

In January 2008 the Pirate Party was given a letter from the Bavarian Ministry of Justice, which included possible evidence of the use of a trojan to listen in on skype conversations and technical details about the employed software. According to the Party, the trojan is suitable for eavesdropping of VoIP conversations and should be able to be installed by police by e-mail or by accessing the system locally. Furthermore, the software can be changed or even deleted without leaving traces and allows access to internal properties of the Skype client and SSL-encrypted websites. "Now that this search has taken place, there's no doubt left about the genuineness of the letter", according to the Pirate Party.

"Some of our people [policemen/politicians] seem to be quite intent on implementing a police state", said Jens Seipenbusch, deputy chairman of the Pirates.
The Courts

Hans Reiser Leads Police To Nina's Body 1523

Posted by kdawson from the removing-all-doubt dept.
jlmcgraw was the first to alert us that Hans Reiser has led police to the location in the Oakland Hills where he buried the body of his wife Nina. (We discussed the rumor that he would do so last month.) SFGate.com reports that remains were recovered but have not yet been identified. Reiser is to be sentenced on Wednesday. CBS5 claims that Reiser made a deal for a reduced sentence, to 15 years, in exchange for revealing the body.
Security

Submission + - Russian Business Network Closes Up Shop

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Russian Business Network — a St. Petersburg-based Internet service provider and Web hosting firm notorious for providing bulletproof hosting services to criminal groups — gave up its IP space this week, after several of its upstream providers cut ties to the group, The Washington Post reports. The move comes just weeks after RBN received some heavy media attention for its connections to spammers, virus writers and child pornography sites. While the disappearance of RBN is being hailed as a positive development, experts are pointing to signs that those behind the network already are setting up shop elsewhere, at locations in China and Turkey.
Music

Submission + - Saul Williams following Radiohead's steps (niggytardust.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Saul Williams — with Trent Reznor's mentoring — is releasing his new album online for digital download on November 1st, following Radiohead's technique. This time, you can get 192kbps MP3 for free, or pay $5 for 192/320kbps and FLAC. Quoting Reznor's post on his website: "After thinking about this way too much, I feel we've improved upon their idea in a few profound ways that benefit you, the consumer. You obviously will be the judge of this in the end. One thing that IS very different in our situation is that Saul's not the household name (yet!) that Radiohead is"
Music

Submission + - Artist Network Visualization (mystrands.com)

Submitted by
Justin Donaldson
Justin Donaldson writes: "This is a live visualization of listening activity generated by MyStrands users. The visualization uses force directed placement for the layout and interaction. Nodes are created when a user listens to a new artist, while links are created from a user who listens to two artists consecutively. Networks of related artists are gradually formed as users link them together over time. Network nodes/components can be dragged around the screen at will, and extended information (such as artist, album, user information) is available by clicking on a given artist node. Track preview clips are offered (when available), but are only offered as streaming Microsoft WMA files."

Slashdot 10-Year Anniversary Charity Auction for the EFF 327

Posted by CmdrTaco from the time-for-fall-cleaning dept.
As part of our 10-Year anniversary, we've decided to have a little charity auction, with the cash going to the EFF. The items currently up for bidding are 'Triton' (the big old tower case from the first x86 used to host Slashdot from Feb 11 1998 through much of 1999... picture is attached to the story if you're curious). A low numbered UID (3 or maybe 2 digits!) so you can win those stupid low UID pissing match threads. Your URL plugged in the story where we announce the auction winners. Oh the fame! The Slashdot Grab Bag: We're putting stuff around the office in a box- random t-shirts, hats, even an old Nokia NGage. The mystery box could contain anything that we stuff in the box before the contest ends... there's a picture of what we have so far attached. A copy of the watchmen trade paperback singed in Hemos's 1999 house fire. An @slashdot.org email alias (tasteful names only ;) The auctions will be running for like 10 days, and we'll post the results when they come up.
Power

Submission + - Ubuntu's Power Consumption Tested (phoronix.com)

Submitted by
RedDragon
RedDragon writes: "Ubuntu 7.10 is due out on Thursday, October 18, and in addition to desktop 3D effects, GNOME 2.20, and other features is the use of the Linux 2.6.22 kernel with the tick-less (CONFIG_NO_HZ) kernel feature. But does this mean enhanced power savings when compared to past Ubuntu releases? At Phoronix are Ubuntu power consumption tests looking back at the six Ubuntu releases from Ubuntu 5.04 to the yet-to-be-released Ubuntu 7.10. Testing was done when the system was idling and then under load and when the Lenovo notebook was powered via the battery and then again with the AC adapter. The Pentium M CPU temperature was also monitored. While Ubuntu 7.10 does include the tick-less kernel feature, more daemons and processes running by default on these modern Ubuntu releases is actually causing an increase in power consumption."
Editorial

Submission + - Nobel Prize Gives Dry Chemistry Some Credit (wired.com)

Submitted by
SoyChemist
SoyChemist writes: "Surface science, the field of study that earned Gerhard Ertl the 2007 Nobel Prize in chemistry, is far from glamorous. How often do images of a scientist hovering over a foil-wrapped microscope, or any other classic tool of the dry but important discipline, grace the covers of Scientific American, Wired, or Discover? For thousands of researchers that have studied physical chemistry and materials science with no hope of recognition, the decision to give Ertl the prize should be a pleasant surprise."
Nintendo

Submission + - Nintendo announces some Megatons 2

Submitted by
DeanCubed
DeanCubed writes: "Nintendo has just made some major announcements this morning!

First of all, Sonic the Hedgehog is now in Smash Bros. In addition, they have unveiled the WiiWare service which allows Wii owners to purchase and download original games from various developers. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and an online multiplayer Dr. Mario headline the launch of the service.

Two new Channels have also been announced — one to compare and vote on Mii creations, and a demo/minigame download channel for the DS. Next, motorbikes have been added to Mario Kart.

Mario Baseball for Wii was announced.

The latest firmware update has enabled full USB keyboard support for the Wii, and Logitech has announced a Wii keyboard. Finally, one of the huge upcoming blockbusters in Japan, Monster Hunter 3 from Capcom, has been changed from PS3 exclusive to now appearing on Wii.



Check http://www.n-sider.com/ or http://www.ign.com/ for all the stories."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Is Video RAM a good swap device?

Submitted by sean4u
sean4u writes: I use a 'lucky' (inexplicably still working) headless desktop PC to serve pages for a low-volume e-commerce site. I came across a gentoo-wiki.com page and this linuxnews.pl page that suggested the interesting possibility of using the Video RAM of the built-in video adapter as a swap device or RAM disk. The instructions worked a treat, but I'm curious as to how good a substitute this can be for swap space on disk. In my (amateurish) test, hdparm -t tells me the Video RAM block device is 3 times slower than the aging disk I currently use.
What performance do other slashdotters get? Is the poor performance report from hdparm a feature of the hardware, or the Memory Technology Device driver? What do slashdotters use to measure swap performance?
Data Storage

Submission + - Disk technology takes Nobel Prize

Submitted by jcgam69
jcgam69 writes: French scientist Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg of Germany have won the 2007 Nobel Prize for physics. They discovered the phenomenon of "giant magnetoresistance", in which weak magnetic changes give rise to big differences in electrical resistance. "A computer hard-disk reader that uses a GMR sensor is equivalent to a jet flying at a speed of 30,000 kmph, at a height of just one metre above the ground, and yet being able to see and catalogue every single blade of grass it passes over."
Censorship

Submission + - Taiwanese winner creates controversy at WCG (k-rad.hk)

Submitted by
HK Gamer
HK Gamer writes: "A Taiwanese bronze-medalist created a stir last weekend at the World Cyber Games finals, as he raised the flag of Republic of China while taking the podium. Mainland Chinese competitors cursed and booed him on stage, as they were told that they would be barred from any competition that allows Taiwan to display any hints of independence."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - 40GB PS3 will NOT be backwards compatible! (computerandvideogames.com) 2

Submitted by
gevmage
gevmage writes: "An article on computerandvideogames.com says that the 40GB version of the PlayStation 3 console, which will supplant the 60GB version (at least in Europe) will not be backwards compatible. From the article: 'In a new eye-opener from Sony the company's revealed that it's to drop backwards-compatibility support in PlayStation products.'

Personally, I think that Sony's generally good attitudes about backwards compatibility has been one reason that I own a PlayStation 2. If they dump that completely, then I may go Wii shopping."
NASA

Submission + - Simultaneous min and max polar ice records set

Submitted by wattsup
wattsup writes: Recent news about the rapid sea ice loss in the artic this year, reaching a new record low extent may not be so worrisome after all. While it has been attributed to global warming by many, NASA issued a press release this week that explains the mechanism as being shifts in polar wind patterns.

"Unusual atmospheric conditions set up wind patterns that compressed the sea ice, loaded it into the Transpolar Drift Stream and then sped its flow out of the Arctic," said Son Nghiem of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and leader of the study. When that sea ice reached lower latitudes, it rapidly melted in the warmer waters.

At the very same time, a new Antarctic maximum ice record extent has been set. While the Arctic ice has shrunk to 3 million square kilometers, the Antarctic has peaked at a record 16 million square kilometers. With one pole shrinking and another gaining, the net change in ice area worldwide is only about 5%. According to researchers, over the last 100 years, there appears to have been no statistically significant change in seasonal variations of sea ice.

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