kc_cyrus - Slashdot User

Submission + - Google going down the drain in China (commiepod.org)

Submitted by

gaz_hayes

on Sunday November 18, 2007 @09:18AM

gaz_hayes writes: "Want to know why US web companies never seem to make it in China? Successful US websites are targeted by Chinese government backed companies who copy the site, deploy it on a .cn domain, and then DNS poison or forcefully lower the bandwidth the US site. Just a few weeks ago google.com and google.cn were DNS poisoned accross the entire Chinese internet and were being redirected to their Chinese competitor Baidu. This probably explains Google's 3rd quarter market share in China."

Submission + - Vista Requires More Hardware Resources than Micros (fliiby.com)

Submitted by nitroy2k on Sunday November 18, 2007 @09:10AM

nitroy2k writes: A new level of the absurd... Windows Vista requires more hardware resources than Microsoft's Windows for Supercomputers. Yet one operating system is designed to run on home computers while the other is aimed at the high-performance computing (HPC) market. And when it comes to the actual machines, there simply is no contest between the performance delivered by a commercially-available, off-the-shelf PC and a supercomputer. Super-Windows With Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 Microsoft made the first step into the high-performance computing market, the initial stage in a strategy set up to make HPC a mundane aspect of the commercial mainstream, in the company's vision. The availability of Windows HPC Server 2008 will be synonymous with the Redmond company gaining ground on parallel supercomputers and computer clusters. Parallel computing represents without a doubt the future direction of evolution for processor architectures, with even Microsoft anticipating the tailoring of the Windows client to multicore infrastructures. http://blog.fliiby.com/archives/2007/11/18/vista-requires-more-hardware-resources-than-microsofts-windows-for-supercomputers/

Submission + - MLB Fans Who Bought DRM Videos Get Hosed

Submitted by

Billosaur

on Wednesday November 07, 2007 @12:24PM

Billosaur writes: "Found via BoingBoing, Major League Baseball has just strengthened the case against DRM. If you downloaded videos of baseball games from MLB.com before 2006, apparently they no longer work and you are out of luck. MLB.com, sometime during 2006, changed their DRM system. Result: game videos purchased before that time will now no longer work, as the previous DRM system is no longer supported. When the video is played, apparently the MLB.com servers are contacted and a license obtained to verify the authenticity of the video; this is done by a web link. That link no longer exists, and so now the videos will no longer play, even though the MLB FAQ says that a license is only obtained once and will not need to be re-obtained. The blogger who is reporting this contacted MLB technical support, only to be told there are no refunds due to this problem."

Submission + - Google stock price hits $666 for the first time (yahoo.com)

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @02:21PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Google's stock price hit $666 for the first time today. Classic evil company behavior."

Submission + - ECMAScript 4 Overview Released (ecmascript.org)

Submitted by

mad.frog

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @02:19PM

mad.frog writes: "The ECMA Committee that has been working on the next revision of ECMAScript (aka JavaScript, aka JScript) has released an overview paper describing ECMAScript 4 as the language currently stands. They're expecting the standard to be finished in October 2008. The paper is available at http://www.ecmascript.org/es4/spec/overview.pdf. This paper is not a spec, it is *just* a detailed overview. Some features may be cut, others may be changed, and numerous details remain to be worked out, but by and large this is what TG1 expects the language to look like."

Submission + - Music Sharing Site Oink Shut Down (mtv.com)

Submitted by

chancie

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:57PM

chancie writes: "The music file sharing website Oink has been shut down pending a criminal investigation. Currently on the site there is a threat to those who used Oink: "A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's users". The site boasts the leaking of over 60 major pre-release albums."

Submission + - EU to adopt equivalent of US H1-B visa

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:53PM

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC reports that the European Union is poised to adopt a new type of visa meant to ease immigration of skilled workers within the next few years. At the moment, 50% of skilled migrants worldwide go to the US. Only 5% go to Europe. It is hoped that these "blue cards", similar to the American "green card" work visas, will change these statistics and attract the technology and other skilled workers that the EU desperately needs.

Submission + - Verisign to sell DNS root server lookup data?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: According to this article at Domain Name News, Verisign is considering selling partial access to DNS root server lookup data. The data would be made available to registrars, who in turn could use it for traffic tasting non-existent domains entered by any internet user.

Submission + - Turbolinux, Microsoft patent cross-licensing (eweek.com)

Submitted by

willdavid

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @01:12PM

willdavid writes: "By Peter Galli (eWeek): The agreement is the first between Microsoft and a Linux server and desktop platform distributor in Asia. Linux vendor Turbolinux is expanding its relationship with Microsoft with a patent cross-licensing agreement with the software maker. The deal, which was announced by the two companies Oct. 22, is the first between Microsoft and a Linux server and desktop platform distributor in Asia. Turbolinux is headquartered in Tokyo. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2204865,00.asp"

Submission + - OiNK is taken down by Interpol, admin arrested 2

Submitted by QuietR10t on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @12:53PM

QuietR10t writes: Scott Gilbertson from Wired raises an interesting point: "However, there is one interesting quote in the IFPI's press release. Jeremy Banks, head of the IFPI's Internet Anti-Piracy Unit, says in the press release: "OiNK was central to the illegal distribution of pre-release music online. This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure. This was a worldwide network that got hold of music they did not own the rights to and posted it online." (emphasis mine)

The IFPI seems to be making a distinction of scale between professional piracy groups and friends sharing files, even if, so far as I know, copyright laws in Britain (and the U.S.) make no such distinctions."
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/10/oink-is-the-lat.html

There are also rumors of investigation into users, but with 180k users I'm not sure they would know where to start.

Submission + - Microsoft Pledges Not To Sue Turbolinux Users (informationweek.com)

Submitted by

mytrip

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @12:40PM

mytrip writes: "Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) said it will not pursue any legal action against Linux users who use a server distribution of the open-source operating system offered by Turbolinux.

The pledge is part of a "broad collaboration agreement" that Microsoft on Monday said it has struck with Turbolinux, which specializes in distributing open-source software in emerging markets like China, Japan, and India.

"The agreement will provide intellectual property assurance for Turbolinux customers who purchase Turbolinux Server," Microsoft said in a statement."

Submission + - Politics Shorting Out the Power Grid? (eweek.com)

Submitted by eweekhickins on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @12:36PM

eweekhickins writes: Electric plants were built to be reliable, available, and efficient; not necessarily to be secure. That explains the past, but not the present. So why are electric utilities so vulnerable to a cyberattack — vulnerable enough to put national security at risk? First and foremost, you'd think utilities would treat these systems with at least as much security as you treat your mainstream IT systems. But according to security expert Joe Weiss, that's exactly what they've refused to do. "The bottom line is that the utilities simply don't want to do very much, and, consequently, what they've done is written a standard that provides all sorts of exemptions and exceptions and ambiguousness so they can do as little of what they consider necessary and not have to do anything." And they can get away with this because? Congressional gridlock you say? Imagine the gridlock when all the traffic lights go out in Washington.

Submission + - Microsoft Not Refunding Points When XBOX360 Dies (achieve360points.com) 4

Submitted by

DonnarsHmr

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @12:32PM

DonnarsHmr writes: "After spending 26 hours, 55 minutes on the phone with 800-4MY-XBOX and 33 hours, 55 minutes trying the various fixes suggested by customer service, being hung up on multiple times by a CSR, and having a note attached to his file instructing CSRs to blow him off without resolving the issue, Speaker Ender finds out Microsoft will not be transferring his 25,600 ($319.87 worth) XBOX Live points to his new XBOX after his old one died. In fact, Microsoft will not be doing any refunds of transfers when an XBOX dies and has to be replaced.

$320 of paid for content? Stolen by Microsoft."

Submission + - Universal Edition Shuts down Music Library

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @12:17PM

An anonymous reader writes: The International Musical Score Library Project, a canadian based project running for a few years now, making musical scores freely available to the public has been forced to shutdown under threat (pdf) of legal action from Universal Edition.

Submission + - Stolen unencrypted laptop contains 159,000 records (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by

DLa Voie

on Tuesday October 23, 2007 @12:14PM

DLa Voie writes: "I received a letter from Administaff yesterday stating my data (SSN and other personally identifiable information) was one of the 159,000 records contained on the unencrypted laptop. The laptop computer, which was reported missing on Oct. 3, contained data that was being compiled "in response to a governmental reporting requirement", according to Administaff. How long will it be before this negligence stops, and what type of action do you suggest when this reoccurring scenario happens?"

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