27338554
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
I just caught wind of a story over at the Huff. Bell Canada has written a letter to the CRTC indicating that it will end traffic shaping on March 1, 2012. Although Bell says that this is due to "increasing popularity of streamed video and other traffic" and "P2P file-sharing, as a proportion of total traffic, has been diminishing", it's far more likely that they are interested in higher revenue. In all likelihood, the change of heart is based on the fact that Bell has moved most of their customer base to, and offer no alternative to, low-usage-cap UBB packages, which would ultimately generate more income or deter full usage of their service (and thus require less infrastructure investment).
22034600
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
I just discovered that Seagate Recovery Services online submission form is leaking customer data. If you've ever submitted contact information to them, or any of their subsidiaries, anyone else on the Internet can find out your name, address, phone number (and a little bit more) by entering your Email address in the "Email Address" field.
I submitted data 5 years ago to a company that Seagate acquired 3 years ago (a different Email address), and my information is available for all to see.
Here's how it works: Once you enter the Email address, click off of the input field and wait for 3 seconds to see if the rest of the fields become populated. If not, the Email address is not in their system. If so, you are presented with the person's data. Furthermore, if data is present, the fields are disabled, so it's not possible to edit/remove it.
Check it out: https://services.seagate.com/online_request_form.aspx — enter test@test.com and you'll see some guy's information from Texas.
18103456
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
Julian Assange has been released on Bail for $315,000 with a few restrictions. He is under house-arrest (he must reside at a mansion), he has an electronic monitoring device, and must check-in with police on a daily basis.
5933857
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
I found this promising news over on Michael Geist's website: In an amazing display of wisdom and understanding, British Columbia (Canada) court of appeals (in a split decision) decided that it is not libelous to link to defamatory content.
The judge stated that "there is, in my view, no substantial difference between providing a web address and a mere hyperlink. Whether the hyperlink is a web address, as is often the case, or a more specific reference, both require a decision on the part of the reader to access another website, and both require the reader to take a distinct action, in the one case typing in a web address and in the other case clicking on the hyperlink. In other words, there is a barrier between the accessed article and the hyperlinked site that must be bridged, not by the publisher, but by the reader. The essence of following a hyperlink is to leave the website one was at to enter a different and independent website."
The case was brought about by B.C. businessman Wayne Crookes who claimed that p2pnet had damages his character by linking to websites with which he did not agree.
n.b. Presumedly, the websites with the actual content in question is outside of the purview of the canadian courts, however, p2pnet is not.
5851503
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
Hi, I'm a pigeon, and I'm faster than South Africa, at doing the Internet.
The results are in: it's faster to send your data via an airborne carrier than it is through the pipes.
As discussed yesterday, I just read over on Yahoo news that a company in South Africa called Unlimited IT, frustrated by terribly slow Internet speeds, decided to prove their point by sending an actual homing pigeon with a "data card" strapped to its leg from one of their offices to another while at the same time uploading the same amount of data to the same destination via their ISPs data lines. The media outlet reporting this triumph said that it took the pigeon just over 1 hour to make the 80km/50mile flight, whereas it took over 2 hours to transfer just 4% of that data.
5787137
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
Internet and law genius Michael Geist writes about some shinanigans by the cell phone carriers and the Canadian government in his column in The Star. Canadian tax payers funded a "Cell Phone Cost Calculator" so that the average person could theoretically wade through the disjointed and incongruent package offerings just to have to yanked a couple weeks before launch. Michael Geist suggests that the major cell carriers lobbied the appropriate public officials to have the program nixed because it would bite into their profit if the general people could make sense out of pricing and fees. Geist continues "Sensing that [Tony] Clement (Industry Minister) was facing pressure to block the calculator, Canadian consumer groups wrote to the minister, urging him to stick with it.". Moving forward Michael makes a novel suggestion, one that would show an immense level of understanding by the government — "With public dollars having funded the mothballed project, the government should now consider releasing the calculator's source code and enable other groups to pick up where the OCA (Office of Consumer Affairs) left off."
5436251
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
Bell Canada started hijacking non-existent domains (in the same manner as Rogers), redirecting NX-response queries to themselves, of course. Before opting-out, you get their wonderfully self-promoting and self-serving search page. When you "opt-out", your browser receives a cookie (isn't that nice) that tells them that you don't want the search page. It will still use their broken DNS server's non-NX response, but it will show a "Domain Not Found" mock-up page that they (I surmise) tailor to your browser-agent string. During the opt-out process they claim to be interested in feedback, but provide no method on that page (or any other page within the 'domainnotfound.ca' site) to contact them with complaints. They note that opting-in is "recommended" (!), and that "In order for opt-out to work properly, you need to accept a "cookie" indicating that you have opted out of this service. If you use a program that removes cookies, you will have to repeat this opt-out process when the cookie is deleted. The cookie placed on your computer will contain the site name: "www.domainnotfound.ca". Unfortunately most Bell Internet users won't understand the difference between their true NX domain response, and Bell's injected NX response.
My questions: Do they get paid per click? To whom shall I complain at Bell?
763511
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
I just read a story over at newteevee.com. The Pirate Bay wants to develop a new Operating System level protocol called "Transparent end-to-end encryption for the Internets, or IPETEE for short" for Windows, and Linux, that would permit the ability to encrypt all traffic over the Internet, regardless if the app you are running has ever heard the word 'cypher'. This could be executed at a hardware level, which could potentially don a huge set of opaque goggles over the eyes of your ISP, and any other guy that wants to spy on the content of your private communication.
My question is this: Which countries would consider this technology to be illegal?
528678
submission
inject_hotmail.com writes:
MSNBC has a story reporting that a woman (Raelyn Campbell) brought her laptop in to a Best Buy store to have the power button fixed under warranty. Best Buy lost it, and wouldn't tell her the truth. After being thrown about in customer service hell, they finally admitted to losing it, and offered $900 to be on her way. Raelyn Campbell refused, and demanded $2100 to replace the unit, software, and to compensate for her time. That request was promptly ignored. After some letter-writing, BB offered $1600 in refunds and store credits. Again it was refused as being too little. Shortly thereafter, the woman decided to consult council, and realized that her life story (in the form of tax returns) could have been set free, and is now subject to ID misrepresentation. Further complaints to Best Buy fell upon deaf ears. To gain enough attention to the matter, she then filed a $54 million law suit. It worked, now everyone is listening to her story. Hundreds of comments have shown up on MSNBC's news article detailing the horror stories that BB has generated. All she really wanted was an explanation, and replacement of her stuff.
Some people have suggested that she should have removed the hard drive before having it serviced. Though it is sound advice, how is a non-technically minded user with no tech-friends able to do this with confidence? Best Buy may also have had an 'anti-tampering' policy in their warranty terms, which would prevent her from such an action. In that case, having the data cloned to another hard drive by another company, and securely wiped would have helped also, but that would introduce huge costs that shouldn't be required for such a simple situation. Surely a high-risk operation to an end-user.
Has this, or something similar, ever happened to you? If so, how did the situation get resolved?
465454
submission
inject writes:
PC World has an article on how Microsoft and the Library of Congress are getting together to create a new online/offline experience. The idea sounds great! The site "will allow visitors to the Myloc.gov" site to view and sometimes interact with items such as a rough draft of the U.S. Declaration of Independence...". You'll be able to pick points of interest from the website, print a barcode, then go to the kiosks in the LOC, which will show you where to go.
To get the seemingly huge project off the ground, Microsoft will be "donating software, funding and training". The article goes on to say "Interactive presentation software for kiosks will run on Windows Vista and its Web equivalent, built using Microsoft Silverlight. The project will also use Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 Web content management software."
