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Communications

Submission + - Simple to set up email solution? 3

Submitted by Jordan (jman)
Jordan (jman) writes: I have been looking into setting up an email server for a small buisiness. It won't be anything very complicated. It will have one domain and a few dozen users, but may need more domains and users in the future. I want to set it up with POP, IMAP, and webmail access. The configuration of mail servers does not seem to be a simple task by any means. I started looking for an easier way than reading up for a couple weeks. I would like to find something with the simplicity and web based configuration like in the hosting control panels. Control panels like cPanel, Plesk, etc make it easy but I do not need all the other features such as webserver, DNS, FTP, and so on. Also, something free would always be nice. Are there any control panels out there for email alone?
Security

Submission + - Protecting IM from the NSA, a Canadian's view 3

Submitted by
holden
holden writes: "Ian Goldberg, leading security researcher, professor at the university of waterloo, cypherpunk and co-creator of the Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) protocol recently gave a talk on protecting your IM conversations. He discusses OTR and its importance in today's world with warrant-less wire tapping and all that bad stuff. With OTR users benefit from being able to have truly private conversations over IM, by using encryption to obtain authentication, deniability, and perfect forward secrecy, while working within their existing IM infrastructure. With the recent NSA wiretapping activities and increasing Big Brother presence, security and OTR are increasingly important. An avi of the talk is available by http as well as by bittorrent and a bunch of other formats."
Supercomputing

Submission + - IBM dominates first Green 500 supercomputer list

Submitted by Stony Stevenson
Stony Stevenson writes: Researchers at Virginia Tech have released the first Green 500 list which ranks the world's supercomputers by performance-per-watt rather than pure processing power. The list of the 500 most energy efficient supercomputers around the world is a derivative of the Top 500 list, a bi-annual report of the top performing supercomputer sites. This inaugural list uses the measured power consumed during a Linpack run, if submitted, or peak power consumption of the supercomputer otherwise. The top of the list is completely dominated by IBM's Blue Gene supercomputers, with 26 of the top 27 deployments.
Graphics

Submission + - 2007 Linux Graphics Survey Results (phoronix.com)

Submitted by
Michael
Michael writes: "At Phoronix we have finished our 2007 Linux Graphics Survey and the results are now available with over 20,000 submissions. This survey sought to find out the most popular graphics hardware in use, which closed and open-source drivers are being used, and how many are using accelerated desktop effects. The survey found that nearly half of those polled were using NVIDIA hardware, about 60% of Linux desktop users are using Compiz Fusion, Compiz, or Beryl, and that most still end up modifying their xorg.conf manually..."
Education

Submission + - Eve, the virtual math teacher

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "New Zealand computer scientists have developed Eve, an affective tutoring system (ATS) which can adapt its response to the emotional state of children by interaction through a computer system. The researchers say their teaching system, dubbed 'Easy with Eve,' is the first of its type and add they 'wanted to create a virtual teacher capable of reading and understanding body language and facial expressions to ensure that it has the attention of students.' Today, Eve teaches mathematics, but this 'robotic' intelligent system could be adapted to other situations and become an important development in the $25 billion e-learning market. But read more additional references and for for pictures of Eve in action."
Government

Submission + - Microsoft partner to derail Russian state Linux?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Russian government has recently announced a contest of proposals to develop a "set of Open source software for educational use", or in plain words, create a state-supported distribution of OS and educational software for schools and universities.

Maximum bid price for this project is fixed by the government to be about $2.8 mln. Five known companies and one university have replied with proposals to develop the software, and named prices from about $1.6 mln. to $2.8 mln.

However, the really interesting is the seventh proposal. It names a dumping price of just $200k for whole project. The proposing company, "KORUS Consulting", in a statement on their website says that in reality the project is going to cost them about $2.6 mln., but since they have decided to "invest heavily" in "Russian OSS market", they... will pay the remaining $2.4 mln. of these expenses out of their own pockets.

What makes this very creepy, is another page of KORUS website, describing the company as having "the highest status of partnership with Microsoft — a Gold Certified Partner, and a Certified Education Partner, and also that in 2006 the company was a part of Microsoft's Presidential Club, which only "top" 5% of Microsoft partners are allowed to join."

So, could it be, that this company (and Microsoft through it) looks to make the Russian Linux project a failure, by first winning it with offer which is ten times cheaper than everyone else's, then gathering all the rights to execute the state projects in this area, and then.. not producing anything even remotely usable, pushing all the potential users of this project's product back into the shackles of Windows and MS Office?

The project is currently in the proposals evaluation stage. Surely, will be interesting, how that turns out.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Where is the weak dollar?

Submitted by allcoolnameswheretak
allcoolnameswheretak writes: How is it that even though the Euro is about to hit the 1.5 U.S. Dollar mark, prices on videogames and other U.S. products in Europe seem to be translated from Dollars to Euros 1 to 1? Compare the price for Halo 3 for example on Amazon.de and the same product on Amazon.com the prices being 59.99$ and 59.45 EUR respectively. What is this? How can this price be considering the US $ — Euro exchange rate? Are europeans being ripped off?
Power

Submission + - Peak Oil to hit by 2012 (wsj.com)

Submitted by Target Drone
Target Drone writes: Both Time and The Wall Street Journal are reporting that peak oil has either already arrived or will arrive as early as 2012. Peak oil is the point in time where smaller new discoveries are unable to offset declining production from older fields and we'll have to make due with ever declining oil production. Since 1980 we have been consuming more oil then we discover each year. Also, world oil production peaked at 85.5 million barrels per day in July 2006 and despite strong demand hasn't come close to this mark since.
Security

Submission + - Off-the-Record Messaging: Useful Security for IM

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The creator of Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR), Ian Goldberg, recently gave a talk about OTR to the University of Waterloo. In his talk, Goldberg discusses why existing secure/encrypted IM implementations are flawed. He notes that those that provide authentication use digital signatures, which gives proof that a message was sent by the user. He also notes that some implementations, such as Trillian, are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. Goldberg then explains how OTR is able to overcome these deficiencies, and provide deniability and perfect forward secrecy. The math behind OTR is quite interesting and requires only a minimal understanding of cryptography. The talk is available via HTTP and BitTorrent and in a variety of formats.
Security

Submission + - Off-the-Record Messaging: Why You Should Use It (uwaterloo.ca)

Submitted by Andareed
Andareed writes: Ian Goldberg, co-creator of the Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) protocol discusses OTR and its importance in today's world. Many instant messaging applications offer some form of encryption and authentication. However, most implementations are deficient. For example, Trillian's implementation is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks. Most implementations also use digital signatures to authenticate, providing proof that you sent a certain message. OTR is designed to provide authentication while ensuring deniability and perfect forward secrecy. Plugins for Pigin/GAIM, Trillian, MSN, and others are available at the OTR website. With the recent NSA wiretapping activities and increasing Big Brother presence, you can't afford not to use OTR.
Security

Submission + - World Famous research Ian Goldberg talks on OTR

Submitted by
metaoink
metaoink writes: "World famous security researcher and professor Ian Goldberg recently gave a talk on securing instant messaging using his invention, OTR.Instant messaging (IM) is an increasingly popular mode of communication on the Internet. Although it is used for personal and private conversations, it is not at all a private medium. Not only are all of the messages unencrypted and unauthenticated, but they are all routed through a central server, forming a convenient interception point for an attacker. With OTR users benefit from being able to have truly private conversations over IM, by using encryption to obtain authentication, deniability, and perfect forward secrecy, while working within their existing IM infrastructure. Many slashdot readers will have probably heard of OTR which is available for Gaim/Pidgin, and this talk outlines the motivation and implementation of OTR. An XVID avi by http of the talk is available as welll as by bittorrent and some other formats"
Programming

Submission + - Overview of the Next C++ Standard (uwaterloo.ca) 1

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "In a recent talk, C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup described the goals he and the ISO C++ Committee have for the next version of the C++ standard. The new standard, tentatively 'C++0x', aims to make programs easier to write and maintain without sacrificing efficiency. Unfortunately, the challenges of revising an existing language and the rigor required make the standardization process slow and painful. The number of proposed features for C++0x far exceeds the number that can feasibly be standardized. Stroustrup describes two new features he believes will make the language much more expressive: initializer lists and concepts. The talk is available for download."
Communications

Submission + - Richard Stallman talks on Copyright V. The People 5

Submitted by
holden
holden writes: "Richard M. Stallman recently gave a talk entitled Copyright vs Community in the Age of Computer Networks to the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club. The talk looks at the origin of copyright, and how it has evolved overtime from something that originally served the benefit of the people to a tool used against them. In keeping with his wishes to use open formats, the talk and qa are available in ogg theora only."

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