Nqdiddles - Slashdot User

Judge — "Making Available" Is Stealing Music 489

Posted by kdawson on Monday August 27, 2007 @10:23PM from the if-i-can-hack-into-your-computer-are-you-liable dept.

JonathanF writes "If you were hoping judges would see reason and realize that just using a program that could violate copyright law is about as illegal as leaving your back door unlocked, think again. An Arizona district judge has ruled that a couple who hosted files in KaZaA is liable for over $40K in damages just because they 'made available' songs that could have been pirated by someone, somewhere. There's legal precedent, but how long do we have before the BitTorrent crew is sued?" The New York case testing the same theory is still pending.

Torrentspy Disables Searching For US IPs 277

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday August 27, 2007 @01:11PM from the everyones-favorite-pariah dept.

dr_strang writes "Torrent indexing site Torrentspy.com appears to have disabled torrent searches for IPs that originate in the United States. Instead of a results page, users are directed to this page, which states: 'Torrentspy Acts to Protect Privacy. Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website. Torrentspy's decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws."

Acer to Acquire Gateway for $710 million 222

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday August 27, 2007 @11:28AM from the bargain-shopping dept.

downix writes "On the way into work today, I heard about Acer buying Gateway. A bold move strategically, I wonder what consequences this will have for Gateway's employees and customers. As the purchase price was at $1.90 per share, those of us that purchased Gateway shares a few years ago are reminded just how far it has fallen."

Submission + - Legal File Sharing with Incentives

Submitted by

Brian

on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:35AM

Brian writes: "At PeerIt, users can post their torrents for sale, and buyers get paid out for helping distribute what they have purchased. The bittorrent tracker has been modified to use digest authentication, and access control lists. Sellers list post their torrents, and can accept PayPal or Google Checkout. Torrents include both a sale price and a payout. The payout is paid out to other buyers who help distribute the file."

Submission + - Mac v. PC Commercials - South Park style

Submitted by ErikInterlude on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:35AM

ErikInterlude writes: The Mac v. PC commercials were fun when they first came out, but for me they've gotten a little old now that the novelty has worn off. I actually forgot them until I came across this little presentation posted on Youtube. It's a Mac v. PC commercial in the style of South Park. The voices could use a little work, but I got a chuckle out of it. I figured the Slashdot community would as well.

Submission + - Last day to submit Real ID comments to DHS

Submitted by

SynCrypt

on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:27AM

SynCrypt writes: "The deadline for submitting comments on Real ID to Department of Homeland Security is 5 p.m. EST on Tuesday, May 8 — and today DHS announced that they're accepting email comments. The address is oscomments@dhs.gov, and emails must have "DHS-2006-0030" in the subject line. Privacy Activism and a lot of other organizations will be filing detailed comments; but numbers count too, especially in politicians' eyes: a strong showing in the commenting process will help swing some of the undecided states against Real ID and add momentum to the repeal movement in Congress. So please, make your voice heard!

The Privacy Coalition and the Stop Real ID Now blog have more a lot more information, including links to sample letters."

Submission + - Montana Store Has No Problem With Used CDs

Submitted by

hendrix2k

on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:27AM

hendrix2k writes: "As we saw in kdawson's submission on May 7th, some states are taking great measures to keep people from burning CDs and selling them used. In Missoula, Montana, however, one record store has no problem with selling an album, letting you burn it, then paying half price for the "used" CD. From the article:

It's a simple policy, really: Standard computer software allows the owner of a CD to copy (aka "rip") to the computer hard drive a CD's tracks, which can then be copied to another recordable CD ("burned") and played, uploaded to any variety of MP3 players — or given to a friend. You then take the CD back to Budget within two days, and you'll get half of what you bought it for in cash.
"

Submission + - Recent activity on DIGG, is DIGG really useful?

Submitted by xploraiswakco on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:25AM

xploraiswakco writes: With the recent activity over Digg.com vs AACS, how valid do you think Digg.com is? Add to that there are many that think Digg.com is easy to hack and therefore falsify it's listings (this is I believe what really happened, hackers didn't want the AACS "stuff" to be removed, it isn't that hard for hackers to get there virus "bots" to register and vote. (This is my opinion).

So what do you think?

Hacked
Not Valid
Valid
Very Valid
Can't live without it.
I don't care, where is my fish, the answer was 42

Submission + - Canadian 'Spy' Coins "Looked Like Nanotechnolo

Submitted by westcoaster004 on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:22AM

westcoaster004 writes: Earlier this year it was reported that according to the U.S. Department of Defence that "on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006, cleared defence contractors' employees travelling through Canada have discovered radio frequency transmitters embedded in Canadian coins placed on their persons."
While the claims were quickly retracted, new reports indicate that the cause of the confusion was a 2004 Canadian coin emblazoned with a red poppy to commemorate the country's war dead. According to reports,

The worried [defence] contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nanotechnology."
"It did not appear to be electronic (analog) in nature or have a power source," wrote one U.S. contractor, who discovered the coin in the cup holder of a rental car. "Under high power microscope, it appeared to be complex consisting of several layers of clear, but different material, with a wire like mesh suspended on top."
The coin's protective coating also glows peculiarly under ultraviolet light.

Submission + - Widespread vulnerability in bank login pages

Submitted by mrcaseyj on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @02:05AM

mrcaseyj writes: Microsoft has criticized some banks for no longer using secure connections for entire login pages and only encrypting the password as it goes back to the bank. This prevents simple password sniffing but doesn't prevent a man in the middle attack from replacing the unsecured login page with one that has disabled encryption. This is especially a problem if you are using an unencrypted wireless connection such as at a coffee shop, because hackers can easily use the airpwn package to intercept the login page and steal your password. An easy remedy for when a secure page isn't available is to enter a bad username and password which usually brings up a secure page telling you to try again. But can you really trust your money to a bank that doesn't even offer the option of a secure login page?

Submission + - Would a completely new OS be a good investment?

Submitted by Knutsi on Tuesday May 08, 2007 @01:49AM

Knutsi writes: Although I do not work with IT support, I see that the complexities of user interfaces and hardware costs companies allot of resources. Microsoft's new Office 2007 dramatically increased access to many of its features, making them more available, and it makes me wonder if it would not be good investment to have a major panel of academics, hardware makers and developers sit down and jointly design a lean new user interface based on the latest research and a new OS core based on recent standards and technologies. If a better, more user-friendly OS could be developed with wide industry support, would it not reduce support and easier development itself justify such an OS being developed?

You Can Oppose Copyright and Support Open Source 378

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 07, 2007 @11:23PM from the point-counterpoint dept.

kfogel writes "I'm submitting 'Supporting Open Source While Opposing Copyright' as a response to Greg Bulmash's piece from yesterday. I think there were a number of flaws and mistaken assumptions in Bulmash's reasoning, and I've tried to address them in this rebuttal, which has undergone review from some colleagues in the copyright-reform community."

Two US States Restrict Used CD Sales 500

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 07, 2007 @09:17PM from the papers-please dept.

DrBenway sends us to Ars Technica for a report that Florida and Utah have placed draconian restrictions on the sale of used music CDs; Wisconsin and Rhode Island may soon follow suit. In Florida, stores have to hold on to CDs for 30 days before they can sell them — for store credit only, not cash. Quoting: "No, you won't spend any time in jail, but you'll certainly feel like a criminal once the local record shop makes copies of all of your identifying information and even collects your fingerprints. Such is the state of affairs in Florida, which now has the dubious distinction of being so anal about the sale of used music CDs that record shops there are starting to get out of the business of dealing with used content because they don't want to pay a $10,000 bond for the 'right' to treat their customers like criminals."

A Foolproof Way To End Bank Account Phishing? 436

Posted by kdawson on Monday May 07, 2007 @08:15PM from the worth-a-try dept.

tcd004 writes "F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen proposes an elegant solution to the problem of bank account phishing in the latest Foreign Policy magazine. Hypponen thinks banks should have exclusive use of a new top-level domain: .bank. 'Registering new domains under such a top-level domain could then be restricted to bona fide financial organizations. And the price for the domain wouldn't be just a few dollars: it could be something like $50,000 — making it prohibitively expensive to most copycats. Banks would love this. They would move their existing online banks under a more secure domain in no time."

Submission + - Why Google Wanted a YouTube Lawsuit

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21, 2007 @06:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: After YouTube was purchased for $1.6 Billion, there was rampant speculation that Google would soon be waist-deep in billion dollar lawsuits. Despite the enormous liability issues, Google purchased YouTube for a mind-numbing sum, leaving many doubters wondering if Google considered all of costs involved. Well, a theory has been put forth explaining what Google may have been thinking when it bought the company: "Letting YouTube fight this battle alone with their own lawyers might have resulted in a very public and unnecessary loss that would have crippled Google's video ambitions and possibly caused collateral damage to a bunch of related industries (especially search)." In short, the author argues that Google had a lot more to lose had it kept away from YouTube and let the old-media companies crush it with lawsuits.

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