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Programming

Submission + - gcc says -10==10 (lkml.org) 6

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A bug in gcc causes it to think -10*abs(x) and 10*abs(x) have the same value. Just compile the following small program:

int main( void )
{
    int i=2;
    if( -10*abs (i-1) == 10*abs(i-1) )
        printf ("OMG,-10==10 in linux!\n");
    else
        printf ("nothing special here\n") ;
    return 0 ;
}
Security

Submission + - Storm Worm Botnet Partitions for Sale (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Bowling for cents
Bowling for cents writes: There is evidence that the massive Storm Worm botnet is being broken up into smaller networks, a surefire sign that the CPU power is up for sale to spammers and denial-of-service attackers. The latest variants of Storm are now using a 40-byte key to encrypt their Overnet/eDonkey peer-to-peer traffic, meaning that each node will only be able to communicate with nodes that use the same key. This effectively allows the Storm author to segment the Storm botnet into smaller networks. This could be a precursor to selling Storm to other spammers, as an end-to-end spam botnet system, complete with fast-flux DNS and hosting capabilities.
Education

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

Submitted by fredklein
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?
Patents

Submission + - Redhat sued for Patent Infringement

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071011205044141
"The first ever patent infringement litigation regarding Linux. Here's the patent, for those who can look at it without risk. If in doubt, don't. "
For those who can without fear read a patent:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=3tUkAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,072,412

http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/202417-recent-copyrightpatent-infringement-cases-filed-in-u.s.-district-courts

"Plaintiffs IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corp. claim to have the rights to U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412 for a User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects issued Dec. 10, 1991 along with two other similar patents.
"

Get your game faces on. Party Time."
Security

Submission + - Ohio official docked vacation time for stolen tape (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "The missing tape, stolen from an intern's car, contained data on all 64,467 state employees, 19,388 former employees and 47,245 Ohio taxpayers. The state believes the incident will cost them $3 million. So after four months of deliberation, the Ohio Department of Administrative Services announced today that they decided to take a week's vacation away from Jerry Miller, their payroll team leader and they guy in charge of the missing data, according to Brian Fonseca at Computerworld."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Declares Old File Formats "Less Secu

Submitted by Nail
Nail writes: In the KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938810

Microsoft's web site states:

"After you install Office 2003 SP3, some Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, Microsoft Office Word 2003, and Corel Draw (.cdr) file formats are blocked. By default, these file formats are blocked because they are less secure. They may pose a risk to you."

I think they MEAN to say that Microsoft Office 2003 cannot open these old file formats in a secure way, but I don't work for them, so it is difficult for me to say.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Tax is 1/3 Price of French Laptop (heise.de) 1

Submitted by kripkenstein
kripkenstein writes: According to a recent court case in France, almost one third of the cost of a particular Acer laptop goes to Microsoft, while another portion goes to other software vendors:

The total of 311.85 euros of the overall purchase price of the notebook of 599 euros [...] was made up of 135.20 euros for Windows XP Home, 60 euros for Microsoft Works, 40.99 euros for PowerDVD, 38.66 euros for Norton Antivirus and 37 euros for NTI CD Maker.
In the ruling, Acer was forced to refund the cost of the software, which the purchaser returned and did not want. If this price ratio is representative of other computers, is the 'Windows Tax' even worse than previously speculated, especially with more expensive Microsoft OSes such as XP Professional or Vista Home Premium and above?
Biotech

Submission + - Purpose of appendix believed found (cnn.com)

Submitted by CambodiaSam
CambodiaSam writes: From the AP wire via CNN: WASHINGTON (AP) — Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut. That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week. For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function. Surgeons removed them routinely. People live fine without them. The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most are good and help digest food. But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.
Music

Submission + - RIAA loses counterclaim lawsuit (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: This is the case in which the Court had sustained 5 of the 6 counterclaims interposed by Ms. Del Cid.

The court sustained defendant's counterclaims for

-trespass to defendant's personal property based on the RIAA's having accessed files on Ms. Del Cid's computer without her permission,
-violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act based on the RIAA's unauthorized intrusion into defendant's computer,
-violation of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act,
-a declaratory judgment of non-infringement, and
-conspiracy to commit extortion, since defendant sufficiently alleged "a peculiar power of coercion possessed by Plaintiffs [by] virtue of their combination, which an individual alone would not possess".
Censorship

Submission + - YouTube DCMA takedowns a one-way street?

Submitted by
Bwooce
Bwooce writes: "A New Zealand user reports that the Entertainment Software Association have issued a DMCA takedown notice on his content involving the installation of a mod-chip on a Wii.

Irrespective of the content, which in this case seems hard to imagine being infringing, the real story here is that YouTube won't let him file a counter-claim as he is not a US resident.

Are we all a target of US laws without being able to respond to them? Are we all in a digital Gitmo?"
Security

Submission + - VM-based rootkits proved easily detectable (stanford.edu)

Submitted by paleshadows
paleshadows writes: A year and a half has passed since SubVirt, the first VMM (virtual machine monitor) based rootkit, was introduced. The idea spawned two lively slashdot discussions: the first, which followed the initial report about SubVirt, and the second, which was conducted after Joanna Rutkowska has recycled the idea (apparently without giving credit to the initial authors). Conversely, in this year's HotOS workshop, researchers from Stanford, CMU, VMware, and XenSource have published a paper titled " Compatibility Is Not Transparency: VMM Detection Myths and Realities" which shows that VMM-based rootkits are actually easily detectable. The introduction of the paper explains that

"While commodity VMMs conform to the PC architecture, virtual implementations of this architecture differ substantially from physical implementations. These differences are not incidental: performance demands and practical engineering limitations necessitate divergences (sometimes radical ones) from native hardware, both in semantics and performance. Consequently, we believe the potential for preventing VMM detection under close scrutiny is illusory — and fundamentally in conflict with the technical limitations of virtualized platforms."

The paper concludes by saying that

"Perhaps the most concise argument against the utility of VMBRs (VM-based rootkits) is: "Why bother?" VMBRs change the malware defender's problem from a very difficult one (discovering whether the trusted computing base of a system has been compromised), to the much easier problem of detecting a VMM."

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