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Operating Systems

Submission + - Linux's role in Microsoft's decline (linuxdevices.com) 1

Submitted by nerdyH
nerdyH writes: As early as last quarter, Microsoft admitted that Linux and netbooks were eating into its fat profits. Today, it came home, with the software giant announcing its first-ever layoffs. LinuxDevices interviewed Linux Foundation Director Jim Zemlin on Linux's role in Microsoft's misfortunes. Zemlin sums it up pretty well: "Companies can offer their own branded software platform based on Linux. If Microsoft is getting 75 percent margins, you would like some of that high-margin business, too."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Russia develops National Operating System

Submitted by
Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: "According to Russian media the Government is going to develop a National Operating System to lower its dependencies on foreign software technology licensing. The Russian plan will base its efforts on Linux and expects a worldwide impact. Microsoft is also involved in the round table process that led to the recommendation. The Chinese government successfully lowered its Microsoft licensing costs through an early investment in a national Linux distribution. I wonder if other large markets as the European Union will also develop their own Linux distributions or join the Russian initiative."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Threatens Harvard Law Prof with Sanctions (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Unhappy with Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson's motion to compel the deposition of the RIAA's head 'Enforcer', Matthew J. Oppenheim, in SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the RIAA threatened the good professor with sanctions (PDF) if he declined to withdraw his motion. Then the next day they filed papers opposing the motion, and indeed asked the Court to award monetary sanctions under Rule 37 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure."
Government

Submission + - Obama Staff Struggles Against Old White House Tech

Submitted by
TarrVetus
TarrVetus writes: "The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration is having difficulties adjusting to the old technology of the White House. From jumbled cables, to outdated software, to security regulations, the first days have been difficult for the new, tech-savvy administration. "'It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari,' Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs." Officials in the press office were prepared, though, with their own cellphones and permission to set up Gmail accounts for office use."
United States

Submission + - SPAM: The government's top 10 trials and tribulations

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The US government certainly has its hands full, especially now with the new administration transitioning in. And the list of problems and hot spots continues to grow. Watchdogs at the Government Accounting Office periodically assess the Fed's most high-risk areas or areas that are prone to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement that can directly impact all of us. On the GAO hit list which was sent to the 111th Congress this week are all manner of issues from repairing the nation's cyber infrastructure and keeping taxpayer information private to how to effectively move the IRS and financial regulatory systems into the future. Interestingly one of the GAO's oft-targeted ventures, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Air Traffic Control modernization has been dropped from the high risk list. While the list currently includes some 31 areas that the GAO says are riskiest, for our purposes we'll focus on 10. [spam URL stripped]"
Link to Original Source

Comment +1 Brilliant!!! (Score 1) 154

by Klootzak (#26558095) Attached to: The State of Video Game Regulation

Bringing accountability to Government means actually saying what you think, not just accepting that you have no voice...
Incidentally - the Internet & Web is the most effective tool for "having a voice" that the Human Race has ever had, why do you think China comes down so hard on it?

Don't just let Governments (or other people in power) pull the wool over your eyes with crap because it makes their jobs easier... Speak out!! (within legal boundaries)

Remember people, we live in Democracies (well, alot of us do!), you don't just have to bend over and take it unless EVERYONE AGREES you should, and most of the time people JUST AREN'T AWARE/INFORMED of what's happening.
The Internet

Submission + - ISPs charge child abuse investigators for data (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
nk497
nk497 writes: "In the UK, ISPs are charging a child protection agency for access to IP user details they need for their investigations into online-related abuse. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has paid out over £170,000 since 2006 on IP data requests related to child abuse cases, and expects to pay another £100,000 this year — enough to fund another two investigators.

The CEOP's CEO said that any ISP which can't afford to give the police such help "simply can't afford to do business.""
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - SPAM: Spiderman Comics Includes Obama Cameo

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "Comic book geeks discovered that Amazing Spider-man #583 includes a story with Barack Obama. The nerdy superhero thwarts an imposter who'd planned to have himself sworn in as President instead. But Spider-man doesn't hang around, because he thinks Joe Biden is "still mad I confused him for The Vulture on the train that one time.""
Link to Original Source
Businesses

Submission + - Aus Telco's memo service suffers as outsourced ope (itwire.com)

Submitted by
davidmwilliams
davidmwilliams writes: "Australian road warriors and others who depend on Telstra's mobile memo service to juggle their voicemail — presenting messages as human-answered bite-sized SMS messages — have noticed a massive degradation of service quality in this last month. I investigated and while Telstra initially denied any change they now concede their outsourced operator — global call-centre player TeleTech Holdings — has offshored 15% of calls to the Phillippines. The execs I spoke to disputed the figure was as low as 15% and are vowing to dump the service in droves due to TeleTech's apparent lack of any quality guarantees. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22823/127/"
Censorship

Submission + - gov.au tells parents they too st00pid for intarweb

Submitted by downundarob
downundarob writes: Senator Nick Minchin , the Australian Shadow Minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy, has written (or more likely a staffer has written) this interesting article on the Australian Federal Governments continued zeal to enforce ISP level filtering in Australia. In the article he posits "Underlying the Rudd Government's plan to screen the internet is an offensive message: that parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online.". Meanwhile, we wait for filtering trials to start, trials that have been delayed and which have next-to-no support among the industry. Telstra BigPond — Australia's largest ISP — has refused to take part, comparing internet filtering to "like trying to boil the ocean". The third largest, iiNet, is prepared to participate to highlight flaws.

Comment Sounds like many jobs I've had... (Score 2, Insightful) 196

by Klootzak (#26553637) Attached to: An FBI Agent's 3 Years Undercover With Identity Thieves

So Agent Mularski got a taste of what it's like to be a SysAdmin? I think it's a good thing, now he would understand what it's like to work in IT, he'll (hopefully) be more sympathetic to IT staff that he works with... We should get more Law-Enforcement officers into undercover IT "busts"!!!

Now, if he had a pager that would buzz him in the 6 hours he got "off" from the computer, that would be JUST like being a SysAdmin ;)

Government

Submission + - Researchers sound off on Obama and energy (ernmag.com)

Submitted by
Eric Smalley
Eric Smalley writes: "Energy in transition: researchers talk about Obama and our future — some appropriate messages on this day of transition
From the article:
I have been sitting with Steven Chu in a working group recently and have known John Holdren since my postdoc years in Berkeley (I am now 67) and hold them both in high esteem. I find it more difficult to imagine that the US can change to an energy efficient and energy conscious nation over the short time required. But I will hold my breath and see how it goes...
We need to all understand that if we don't do the fundamental science and engineering now the people of the future will not have alternatives — we'll be stuck with coal and oil, or nothing."
Education

Submission + - 16 Years out of school and work outsourced

Submitted by
festering_pustule
festering_pustule writes: "I recently was notified that I get to be a "participant" in a workforce managment process (IE, my work got outsourced). I've been out of school for 16 years and since my (and several other people's) job got outsourced to a foreign country, I'm eligible for participation in the TAA (Trade Adjustment Act) and I was given a nice severance package (9 months pay). This will give me the opportunity to return to school with books, tuition, and unemployment benefits paid for approximately 2 years. I want to return to get a masters degree in CS with an emphasis on AI and software systems rather than seek a new job right away (I was a ClearCase admin for the past 9 years who supported some other inhouse tools — I really like SW development and want to return to that). I'm married, have 3 kids at home, and a house to unload. Does returning to earn an MS as described seem like a wise thing to do?"
The Internet

Submission + - SPAM: Cyber data mining catching fire

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The deep study and analysis of the vast amounts of online data continues to pick up steam. This week four research agencies teamed to develop an international competition they hope will heat up humanities and social science research using large-scale data analysis to develop international partnerships and explore vast digital resources, including electronic repositories of books, newspapers and photographs to identify opportunities for cyberscholarship. The group is just one of the latest to explore cyber data mining. The NSF recently said it is looking for highly interpretive technology to help all manner of government and private researchers evaluate the massive amounts of data generated in health care, computational biology, security and other fields. And the The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said it wants to develop software known as a Machine Reading Program (MRP) that can capture knowledge from naturally occurring text and transform it into the formal representations used by AI reasoning systems. [spam URL stripped]"
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