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Security

Submission + - Passwords: Root of all Evil in the Enterprise? (securityweek.com)

wiredmikey writes: According a recent study, passwords are still a problem in the enterprise, including apathy from senior management, and password related chaos from IT staff.

The results of the study, released this week, reveals a fundamental lack of IT security awareness in enterprises, particularly in the arena of password control and privileged logins. For example, 42-percent of the 300 IT professionals surveyed said that their organization share passwords and 51-percent said they needed to remember ten or more passwords for work alone.

Moreover, 50-percent of the passwords in use remain unchanged, despite password rotation being a basic security practice. This is in addition to the respondents admitting that they were aware of some users abusing shared privileges, in order to access information they shouldn't.

Cloud

Submission + - Zend Debuts PHPcloud (serverwatch.com)

An anonymous reader writes: New cloud service for PHP developers takes flight with tools to help build and test cloud applications.

Submission + - Building A Sub-$200 Computer

adeelarshad82 writes: When you're building computers, almost anything is possible at any price thanks to some great research, careful thinking and much needed sacrafice. Infact a recent attempt was made to see if a decent PC could put together for less than $200. Turns out that between some great deals, an AMD processor and Linux OS it can actually be done.

Submission + - Nook Color Updates To Android Tablet (barnesandnoble.com)

jcdenhartog writes: Barnes & Noble pushed out an update to the OS for their Nook Color today which turns the Nook Color into much more of an Android tablet, complete with email application, Flash support, and app store. It looks like development for the app store will be fairly open as well.
Music

String Quartets On the Web? 228

rueger writes "Lots of people love iTunes. I'm partial to emusic.com. Ubuntu comes pre-equipped for Jamendo and Magnatune. These are great for those of us hunting popular music — but where do lovers of classical music go to find new artists and albums, download music, and generally keep informed, up to date, and satisfied? As my girlfriend put it, 'I used to go to the big classical record stores downtown, but they're gone.' Where do people go to find the newest Ligeti String Quartet recording?"

Comment Re:Contradiction (Score 1) 1324

...it's about withdrawing from an evil society so their kids can get baked in their own oven. Christian fundamentalists, right wing militia types, granola crunching hippies--these are the face of the home school movement, and it's justifiable to wonder whether it's in the kids best interest to home school the kids for political rather than educational reasons.

I'd like to see some statistical basis for this, rather than a couple of anecdotes and what the media portrays. In addition, my experience with opponents of home-schoolers is that they are more worried about people being raised with political viewpoints contrary to theirs. Their concern for the kids and a quality education is minimal. But our country thrives on the variety of political viewpoints, not a hive-mind developed by a government education system.

...typically, they're weird kids who've obviously spent too much time in a weird home environment and lack enough socialization to get along well once they're back in the public sphere. That's the danger of home schooling.

Again, this is anecdotal, and not universal. Besides, it appears that Slashdot thrives on these type of people, so shouldn't we work to create more of them? There are plenty of these types of people in the public school system as well, and there are other ways to address these types of issues.

For the record, I was not home-schooled. I spent the middle half of my elementary education in a private school, and the rest in public schools. I have many friends who home-school, so I have seen the benefits compared to the alternatives.

Comment Contradiction (Score 4, Insightful) 1324

For those that oppose home-schooling, do they seriously think that the government does a great job of educating children? I can't believe there are so many that oppose home-schooling, yet Slashdotters in general rail on the poor quality of the American education system.

To me, home-schooling is a great alternative. Parents in general care the most about their children, not the government. Obviously there are the exception (child abusers, etc.), but that's not necessarily an argument to ban all home-schooling outright.

Seems like as long as the children can pass the standardized tests (SAT, etc.), we should support it. In fact, studies have been done that show that home-schoolers often do better than public school students. For example:
http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000010/200410250.asp

Anecdotally, my sister found that some colleges actually prefer home-schoolers for this reason.

Comment Re:Inferior translated holy works (Score 1) 568

Not true, there is plenty of disagreement. You should read a book called 'Cracks In The Crescent', about a man who was a madrassa teaching assistant and muadhin (calls Muslims to pray) for Islam until he became disillusioned with all the discrepancies and contradictions. He provides countless examples to back up his point.

One of the more humorous examples is a story where he proves to several Muslims that Islam teaches that they will all go to hell.

Comment Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score 2, Insightful) 717

The thing is, that's not quite right. Flexible pavements, such as those with asphalt or bitumen-based rolling pavement, don't require any more maintenance than rigid and semi-rigid pavement roads. The only reason that may lead to premature repairs is if they suffer from draining problems or if the foundation suffers from excessive settlement, which is caused by poorly designed and/or built roads.

...or rutting/shoving due to soft pavement from 100 degree or greater temperatures, failure due to diesel spills (very likely with high truck traffic) which breaks down the asphalt, etc.

Like I said, LCCA required. Asphalt does not answer all pavement woes (neither does concrete). Your defense makes it sound like you work for the asphalt industry.

Comment Re:Gravel roads are cheap but need more maintenanc (Score 5, Interesting) 717

I am a licensed civil engineer, and I think your statement (and the one prior) bears qualifying. The choice between an asphalt road and a concrete one should always be analyzed by a life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA), which takes into account the up-front cost of the road plus the maintenance costs. In Southern California, concrete will most often come out ahead in said analysis, especially given our traffic volumes and the traffic delay costs associated with the more frequent maintenance activities required by asphalt. We have concrete pavements here that are 50+ years old. In areas of high freeze-thaw cycles, an LCCA may produce different results. However, it should also be noted that the thump-thump of many concrete pavements today is due to a load-transfer failure between the slabs, something that in new pavements has been addressed with the inclusion of steel dowel bars between slabs.
Privacy

Obama Administration Defends Warrantless Wiretapping 788

a whoabot writes "The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Obama administration has stepped in to defend AT&T in the case over their participation in the warrantless wiretapping program started by Bush. The Obama administration argues that that continuation of the case will lead to the disclosure of important 'state secrets.' The Electronic Frontier Foundation has described the action as an 'embrace' of the Bush policy." Update: 04/07 15:18 GMT by T : Glenn Greenwald of Salon has up an analysis of this move, including excerpts from the actual brief filed. Excerpt: "This brief and this case are exclusively the Obama DOJ's, and the ample time that elapsed — almost three full months — makes clear that it was fully considered by Obama officials."

Microsoft Working On Health Information 'Vault' System 314

josmar52789 wrote with an article from the New York Times, discussing Microsoft's new push into the consumer health care market. The plan is to offer personal health care records online via a system called HealthVault. Numerous big names in the medical field have signed up for the service, including the 'American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson LifeScan, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and MedStar Health'. The ultimate purpose of the service is to provide an online accessible but highly secure service to patients and medical facilities: "The personal information, Microsoft said, will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its privacy controls are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record. Microsoft does not expect most individuals to type in much of their own health information into the Web-based record. Instead, the company hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send into their HealthVault record information like medicines prescribed or, say, test results showing blood pressure and cholesterol levels. "
Patents

Submission + - Google circles wagons to protect Linux

inkedgeek writes: Google has stepped up to join the ranks of IBM and Oracle to join the Open Invention Network. The Open Invention Network members share their Linux patents with each other and offer the prospect of a joint defense if Linux is confronted with a legal challenge. Google hasn't announced which patents will be added to the OIN portfolio, but with it's current standing of about 100 patents, this certainly will strngthen the OIN's ability to challenge threatening patent cases monted against Linux.

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