Comment Rush to sell (Score 1) 134
Why are we in a rush to sell everything we own? These should be leased out for the good of the nasa with the proceeds going to their yearly budget not one company/purchaser.
Comment No pizza (Score 1) 365
So we have seen DDos and bomb threats.. Someone forgot the Pizza.
Comment What a scheme (Score 1) 577
Write shit code, make the world pay to clean it up..
Ballmer Threatens To Pull Out of the US 1142
theodp writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is threatening to move Microsoft employees offshore if Congress enacts President Obama's plans to curb tax avoidance by US corporations. 'It makes US jobs more expensive,' complained billionaire Ballmer. 'We're better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the US as opposed to keeping them inside the US.' According to 2006 reports, Microsoft transferred $16 billion in assets to secretive Dublin subsidiaries to shave billions off its US tax bill. 'Corporate tax is part of the overall advantage of doing business in Ireland,' acknowledged Ballmer in 2005. 'It would be disingenuous to say otherwise.'"
Comment Sounds like a challenge (Score 1) 131
I'll do it
Submission + - Obama Plan to Curb Tax Avoidance Irks Tech World 1
theodp writes: "Barack Obama has squared up for a major battle with big business, announcing a crackdown on offshore tax avoidance and evasion by US multinationals that's designed to raise $210B and make it easier for companies to create 'good jobs here at home'. Obama cited a building in the Cayman Islands where more than 18,000 US companies are housed: 'Either this is the biggest building in the world or it is the biggest tax scam in the world,' he said. 'I think the American people know which it is.' The administration says that more than a third of US foreign profits in 2003 came from Bermuda, the Netherlands and Ireland, and noted US companies paid an effective tax rate of just 2.3% on the $700bn they earned in foreign profits in 2004. Among tech companies affected by the crackdown, Microsoft joined 200 companies who signed a letter complaining that the proposed tax changes would put them at a disadvantage with their rivals, Cisco moaned that the measures 'would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the U.S.,' and Google declined to comment for the time being."
Submission + - A History of MIT Pranks (boston.com) 1
EWAdams writes: The Boston Globe has published a visual history of MIT pranks, some going as far back as 1926. Many involve putting improbable objects in high places. Some required considerable skill and ingenuity to execute, such as putting a fire engine on top of a dome or putting a Halo helmet on a statue in such a way that it blends in perfectly.
Submission + - Researchers Analyze Terrorists' Social Networks
Hugh Pickens writes: "Researchers have developed a new approach to analyzing social networks that could help homeland security find the covert connections between the people behind terrorist attacks by revealing the nodes that act as hubs in a terrorist network and tracing them back to individual planners and perpetrators. Fundamentally, the technique involves "node" discovery where the nodes of a network are the hubs at which different members of the network are connected. Usually, ordinary members have one or two connections, nodes can have several and the critical nodes, the hubs, have many more. Using graph theory and computational data processing the researchers analyzed the network responsible for the 9/11 attacks and found nodes that were not apparent to security experts in advance of the attacks (pdf). "If the investigators had had a warning information on the 19 hijack planners before 9/11, our analysis could have aided the investigators in quickly understanding the complete picture of the organized attack including the covert foundation," says Dr Yoshiharu Maeno. "The short-term target of the responses includes interpretation of the hidden intention of the ... terrorists responsible for the disaster. The long-term target is identification and weakening of the covert foundation.""
Submission + - Leaked Copies Of Windows 7 RC Contain A Trojan (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: "Pirated copies of Windows 7 RC on file-sharing sites contain malware, according to users who have downloaded the upgrade. Windows 7 RC, which Microsoft will officially launch tomorrow, leaked two weeks ago. 'Just a warning for anyone downloading the new RC builds of windows 7. Quiet [sic] a lot of the downloads have a trojan inbedded [sic] in the setup EXE,' said someone identified as Frank Fontaine on a Neowin.net discussion thread. 'The Setup EXE is actually a container, it appears to be a self-extracting EXE. There are 2 files inside, Setup.exe and codec.exe.' Fontaine's antivirus software identified the codec.exe file as a generic Trojan. Another Mininova commenter, 'WuNgUn,' identified the malware as the 'Falder' Trojan, which downloads fake security software, dubbed 'scareware,' to PCs and installs a rootkit to hide from legitimate antivirus products. Hey, Microsoft warned you."
Comment ooops (Score 1) 284
rm -f /
EFF Sues To Overturn Telecom Immunity 369
Mike writes "The title says it all — The EFF is suing to have the unconstitutional telecom immunity overturned. 'In a brief filed in the US District Court [PDF] in San Francisco, the EFF argues that the flawed FISA Amendments Act (FAA) violates the federal government's separation of powers as established in the Constitution and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law. [...] "We have overwhelming record evidence that the domestic spying program is operating far outside the bounds of the law," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Intelligence agencies, telecoms, and the Administration want to sweep this case under the rug, but the Constitution won't permit it."'"
Gamer Plays Over 30 Warcraft Characters 189
If your significant other complains that you play too much World of Warcraft, just show them this article about a user named "Prepared." He plays an amazing 36 World of Warcraft accounts on 11 different computers at the same time. He is his own raid group. "It costs me exactly $5711 in subscription costs per year with 36 accounts on the 6 month pay schedule," he writes. "Not bad considering I'm looking at it like it's a hobby and there are more expensive hobbies out there than World of Warcraft."
Report Indicates Widespread H-1B Visa Fraud 397
Vrst1013 notes a Business Week account of a government report examining fraud in the H-1B program. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services just released a report to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee examining issues with fraud and technical violations within this program. Based on a sample size of 246 H-1B petitions, 13.4 percent showed fraud and 7.3 percent showed technical violations, for an overall violation rate of 20.7 percent. There was slso evidence of payment below the prevailing wage, offers of non-existent jobs, and fraudulent documentation. "'The report makes it clear that the H-1B program is rife with abuse and misuse,' says Ron Hira, [a professor] at the Rochester Institute of Technology ... However, both Presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, have said they support expanding the program."
International Spam Ring Shut Down 243
smooth wombat writes "An international spam ring with ties to Australia, New Zealand, China, India, and the US is in the process of being shut down. Finances of members in the US are being frozen using the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 while the FBI is pursuing criminal charges. The group sent spam advertising male enhancement herbs and other items using a botnet estimated at 35,000 computers, and able to send 10 billion emails per day. The Federal Trade Commission monitored the group's finances and found that they had cleared $400,000 in Visa charges in one month alone."
Paul Krugman Awarded Nobel Prize For Economics 425
zogger writes in his journal, "The guy who put together the concept of geographical location combined with cheap transportation leading to 'like trades with like' and the rise of superindustrial trading blocs has won the Nobel economics science prize. He's a bigtime critic of a lot of this administration's policies, and is unabashedly an FDR-economy styled fella. Here is his blog at the NYTimes." Reader yoyoq adds that Krugman's career choice was inspired by reading Asimov's Foundation series at a young age.
