Graftweed - Slashdot User

Comment Direct Links to NASA TV (Score 4, Informative) 119

by Graftweed on Sunday May 25, 2008 @06:46PM (#23538903) Attached to: Phoenix Mars Lander To Touch Down In 2 Hours

I ran into problems getting the NASA TV streams to work under Firefox in Linux. Here are the direct links if you're in the same boat or don't want to go through javascript infested pages. I only tested the Windows Media one.

Windows Media

Real Media

Quicktime

Submission + - U.S. May Kidnap Wanted British Citizens

Submitted by

Frosty Piss

on Sunday December 02, 2007 @06:15AM

Frosty Piss writes: "
A lawyer for the U.S. government has told the British Court of Appeal in London that kidnapping foreign citizens is permissible under American law because the Supreme Court has sanctioned it, making it clear in a British court that the law applies to anyone, British or otherwise, suspected of a crime by Washington. The lawyer said that if a person was kidnapped by the U.S. authorities in another country and was brought back to face charges in America, no U.S. court could rule that the abduction was illegal and free him.

This is the first I've heard of this outrageous idea applied outside equally questionable "terrorist renditions". Many nations of the world may be surprised to learn the U.S. no longer believes in sovereignty."

Submission + - OSI Approves Two Microsoft Shared-Source Licenses (itworld.com)

Submitted by

narramissic

on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @05:02PM

narramissic writes: "The Microsoft Public License (MPL) and the Microsoft Reciprocal License (MRL), two of Microsoft's so-called 'shared source' licenses, have been approved by the board of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The two take their place as viable OSI licenses for distributing open-source code alongside more widely used community licenses such as the GNU General Public License and the Mozilla Public License.

Of the OSI board's decision, Red Hat Inc. executive Michael Tiemann, who also serves as president of the OSI, said that although Microsoft has not historically been open-source friendly, in the end the licenses spoke for themselves. 'They do have two licenses that went through the community process and did sustain the open-source definition,' he said."

Submission + - OSI gives thumbs-up to 2 Microsoft licenses (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by OSSes Ass on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @03:04PM

OSSes Ass writes: The Open Source initiative has officially approved two Microsoft Shared Source licenses, Microsoft Community (Ms-CL) and Microsoft Permissive (Ms-PL). Ars notes that this was not a surprising decision, given FSF Europe's support, but that significant roadblocks remain for Microsoft in the OSS arena. 'Although OSI validation of Microsoft's licenses is a very big win for Microsoft and the open-source software community, this victory is overshadowed by Microsoft's aggressive attitude towards open-source software. Certain vocal factions of the OSS community will express extreme distrust for Microsoft's open-source licenses, which will make it difficult for the company to build a bridge with the broader OSS community.'

Submission + - Bill Gates Denied Visa to Nigeria (gizmodo.com) 1

Submitted by

Xight

on Saturday October 13, 2007 @02:43PM

Xight writes: "Gizmodo recently wrote an article about Nigeria recently denying Bill Gates a visa to travel there on his recent trip to Africa proving that money can't get you everything. Whats even more amusing is that he was at "initially denied the Microsoft kingpin's application on the premise that they required proof he would not reside in Nigeria indefinitely, causing a strain on social services and a general nuisance for immigration.". I guess those Nigerian 419 scams really do pay off for them."

Submission + - Was Qwest Punished For Not Spying?

Submitted by Avantare on Saturday October 13, 2007 @08:51AM

Avantare writes: QWest did the right thing and rejected the governments request for telephone records. But at what cost? An interesting article from CBS News bringing to light court papers that suggest convicted Exec's rejection of classified project led to loss of goverment business. Makes you wonder what kind of 'rewards' AT&T, Bellsouth and Verizon got from the government.

Submission + - Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat 2

Submitted by mm4 on Friday October 12, 2007 @07:04AM

mm4 writes: Groklaw reports IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state.

Submission + - Grad student suspended after pro-gun-rights e-mail

Submitted by fredklein on Thursday October 11, 2007 @11:51PM

fredklein writes: A Minnesota university has suspended one of its graduate students who sent two e-mail messages to school officials supporting gun rights.
"Hamline University also said that master's student Troy Scheffler, who owns a firearm, would be barred from campus and must receive a mandatory "mental health evaluation" after he sent an e-mail message arguing that law-abiding students should be able to carry firearms on campus for self-defense."
When informed that suspending him violated the school's freedom of expression policy, the University changed their tune: Now they claim he's being suspended because of "anonymous allegations" they received, and they can't tell him (or the press) what those allegations are, or who his accusers are. With all the talk of 'Big Brother' throwing people into detention centers without knowing the charges, are we overlooking 'Little Brothers' closer to home?

Submission + - Cubans have to dress as tourists to use internet

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday October 11, 2007 @09:14PM

Stony Stevenson writes: When 32-year-old Yoani Sanchez wants to update her blog about daily life in Cuba, she dresses like a tourist and strides confidently into a Havana hotel, greeting the staff in German. That is because Cubans like Sanchez are not authorised to use hotel Internet connections, which are reserved for foreigners.

She and a handful of other independent bloggers are opening up a crack in the government's tight control over media and information to give the rest of the world a glimpse of life in a one-party, Communist state. But they face many difficulties. Costs are highly prohibitive (US$6 per hour for Internet access or the equivalent of a fortnight's pay for the average Cuban) and less than 2 percent of the population have access to the internet.

Submission + - New hard drive to work even when computer is off (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruhlinger on Thursday October 11, 2007 @08:17PM

jfruhlinger writes: You've got a file on your laptop that you need to access — but you don't want to wait for your laptop to boot up to get at it. New technology from SST will make the contents of a hard drive accessible via a computer's USB port even when the computer is powered down.

Submission + - FBI remotely installs spyware to trace bomb threat (com.com)

Submitted by

cnet-declan

on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @05:08AM

cnet-declan writes: "There have been rumors for years about the FBI remotely installing spyware via e-mail or by exploiting an operating system vulnerability from afar — and now there's confirmation. Last month, the FBI obtained a federal court order to remotely install spyware called CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier) to find out who was behind a MySpace account linked to bomb threats sent to a high school near Olympia, Wash. News.com has posted a PDF of the FBI affidavit, which makes for interesting reading, and a summary of the CIPAV results that the FBI submitted to a magistrate judge. It seems as though CIPAV was installed via e-mail, as an article back in 2004 hinted was the case. In addition to reporting the computer's IP address, MAC address, and registry information, it also gave the FBI updates on which IP addresses the user(s) visited. But how did the FBI get the spyware activated and past anti-virus defenses? Two obvious ways are for the Feds to find and exploit their own operating system backdoors, or to compromise security vendors..."

Submission + - Setting up a internet gateway similiar to a hotel

Submitted by Scoldog on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @03:27AM

Scoldog writes: Hello everyone.

I work in the IT Dept for a large car dealership in Australia with many branches. One of the branches has decided they want an ADSL line installed so that customers can surf the net while their cars are being serviced. I don't mind the idea but I want to be able to monitor the traffic and filter what people are accessing. From what I have seen, a PC with some sort of monitoring software acting as a gateway would be the way to go rather than forking out for commercial gateway hardware

There are a few requirements that I need:

1. I can't see the need for people having to acknowledge they want internet access as we won't be charging for it (Like a hotel getting people to say 'yes' before accessing internet from their rooms). Does anyone disagree with this and would you recommend?

2. I am a Windows Administrator but I don't like the idea of using a Windows box as a gateway (I have dealt with too many malware infested PC's in the past, just imagining hordes of random people plugging their laptops into a common Windows PC is enough to freak me out!) I am currently playing around with Ubuntu and Fedora in my own time, is there an easy way of setting up a gateway using either of these distributions (preferably Ubuntu)?

3. They are looking at adding wireless access for the customers (instead of plugging in to the wall jacks they have already installed). Is there a solution that can handle stuff like stopping after hours access on the access point (stopping people from hanging around outside leeching net time)

4. I would also like to setup a banned list of words, websites and ports so people are only able to go to 'appropriate' websites and get their email.

5. Being able to dial in and monitor off site plus make changes to the settings would be great as well.

What problems have you come across doing this? Do you recommend a software solution (using a PC as a gateway) or is it not worth it and I should recommend a commercial gateway instead?

Thanks for your help

Submission + - Microsoft tries to strong-arm Florida senators

Submitted by

lisah

on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @10:38AM

lisah writes: "Microsoft apparently took issue with a bill on the floor of the Florida senate and sent three lobbyists to persuade Senators to change its wording before it is signed. As chair of the House Committee on Audit & Performance, Rep. Ed Homan saw an opportunity to save taxpayers some money by exploring open source solutions as the state prepares to upgrade the computers and software at the Department of Health. He inserted some language to that effect into bill 1974 before it got to its first committee approval, but Microsoft started pressuring senators almost immediately to have it removed. From the article, '...within 24 hours three Microsoft-paid lobbyists, all wearing black suits, were pressuring members of the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations (COGO) to remove the words they didn't like.""

Submission + - Open Source Drugs

Submitted by citfor on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @10:08AM

citfor writes: An article by the BBC about the low availability of HIV drugs got me thinking, "We have open source software. Why couldn't we have open source drugs?" We've heard complaints about the drug companies being greedy. We've also heard celebrities say they want to commit resources to AIDS in Africa, Parkinsons, etc. I'd like to hear from the Slashdot community, greedy companies trying to interfere aside, is this technically feasible?

Submission + - Third Annual Underhanded C Contest now Online

Submitted by

Xcott Craver

on Tuesday April 17, 2007 @10:03AM

Xcott Craver writes: "The Underhanded C Contest (new site!) is a security contest to write simple, readable, innocent-looking C programs that conceal malicious behavior. This year's challenge is to write an encryption/decryption program that produces weak ciphertext some small percentage of the time. As always, the goal is writing malicious code that looks perfectly innocent under informal inspection of the source. The prize is a gift certificate to ThinkGeek."

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