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Comment Re:hm (Score 3, Informative) 205

by AlexDusty (#42000551) Attached to: WordPress To Accept Bitcoins
Ok, I see you don't know the first thing about Bitcoin, too bad. Bitcoins can't be mined more than what has been defined on day one, no matter how many CPUs, GPUSs, FPAs, and (soon) ASICs you put at work. Nobody can do a heck about inflation in Bitcoin, no matter how large his resources. The (matematical) rules can be changed only id the majority of the network agrees to a new set. And guess what? Bitcoin is succesful *because* of that rules. Government money will always be scarce for someone (the majority of the people) and will always be printed at will by some other (a minimum minority). Bragging about criminal activities using Bitcoin is exactly the same as bragging about free speech. He who does not understand the importance of the latter can't understand the importance of the former.

Comment Re:hm (Score 4, Insightful) 205

by AlexDusty (#42000317) Attached to: WordPress To Accept Bitcoins
Denying that there are huge organisations doing money laundering with dollars, euros and other currencies is simply burying his head in the sand. I'm sick of hearing ppl dismissing Bitcoin because "it helps money laundering". Bitcoin exists because conventional money is now far too regulated. And of course because in the 21th century we need digital gold... let the fools play with paper money you can print at will...

Submission + - Ray Kurzweil Responds to critics (kurzweilai.net)

Submitted by AlexDusty
AlexDusty writes: Ray Kurzweil directly respond to the accusation that he "does not understand the brain" and that he is "making up nonsense and making ridiculous claims that have no relationship to reality".
Security

Doom-Like Video Surveillance For Ports In Development 56

Posted by Soulskill from the hurt-me-plenty dept.
oranghutan writes "A research and development group down under is working to develop an advanced video surveillance system for ports around the world that uses video superimposed onto a 3D map. With 16-megapixel high-definition cameras on a distributed (cabled) network and a proprietary system written in a variety of languages (C++, Python, SQL, etc.), the group from NICTA is aiming to allow security teams at the Port of Brisbane — which is 110km long — to monitor shipping movements, cargo and people. By scrolling along a 3D map, the security teams can click on a location and then get a real-time video feed superimposed onto the map. Authorities from around the world with the right permissions can then access the same system. The main difference from regular surveillance systems is the ability to switch views without having to know camera numbers/locations and the one screen view."

Acoustic Levitation Works On Small Animals 182

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the sounds-like-fun dept.
anthemaniac writes "Researchers for at least two decades have used acoustic levitation to suspend light materials without a container. Wenjun Xie, a materials physicist at Northwestern Polytechnical University in China, has previously used ultrasound fields to levitate globs of iridium and mercury, very heavy materials. Now the scientist has performed the feat with live animals. From the story: 'Xie and his colleagues employed an ultrasound emitter and reflector that generated a sound pressure field between them. The emitter produced roughly 20-millimeter-wavelength sounds, meaning it could in theory levitate objects half that wavelength or less.' Apparently the ants, spiders and ladybugs endured the trick just fine, but the fish didn't do so well due to lack of water."

Easy Throw-Away Email Addresses 297

Posted by kdawson from the bug-me-not dept.
netbuzz writes, "A fellow teaching himself Seam has come up with a clever Web app called 10 Minute Mail. It gives you a valid e-mail address — instantly — for use in registering at Web sites. Ten minutes later (more if you ask), it's gone. You can read mail and reply to it from the page where you create the throw-away address. Limited utility, yes, but easy and free."

Verifiable Elections Via Cryptography 409

Posted by kdawson from the but-suppose-they-don't-want-to-make-cheating-impossible? dept.
An anonymous reader writes, "Cryptographer David Chaum and his research team have invented a new voting protocol which allows voters to verify that their vote has been correctly cast and counted. This is enabled using a surprisingly low-tech technique of cryptographic secret sharing. The secret — your marked ballot — is split into two halves using a hole punch" You take half home and can verify later via a Web interface how your particular ballot was counted.

Improving Open Source Speech Recognition 121

Posted by kdawson
kmaclean writes, "VoxForge collects free GPL Transcribed Speech Audio that can be used in the creation of Acoustic Models for use with Open Source Speech Recognition Engines. We are essentially creating a user-submitted repository of the 'source' speech audio for the creation of Acoustic Models to be used by Speech Recognition Engines. The Speech Audio files will then be 'compiled' into Acoustic Models for use with Open Source Speech Recognition engines such as Sphinx, HTK, CAVS and Julius." Read on for why we need free GPL speech audio.

Your 'Clickprint' Gives Away Your Identity Online 76

Posted by Zonk from the let's-make-up-some-new-words dept.
Krishna Dagli writes to mention an article at the Guardian site about an increasing interest in the possibility of identifying users by their 'clickprint', or online access habits. The article discusses a new paper on online identification written by two American professors. The piece posits that not only is nailing down individual users by their habits useful for advertisers looking to sell products, it may be possible to use this information to flag stolen identities. From the article: "'Our main finding is that even trivial features in an internet session can distinguish users,' Padmanabhan told the Wharton Review. 'People do seem to have individual browsing behaviors.' The duo found that anywhere from three to 16 sessions are needed to identify an individual's clickprint ... In one example, they found that from just seven aggregated sessions they could distinguish between two different surfers with a confidence of 86.7%. Given 51 sessions, the confidence level rose to 99.4%."

Dunc-Tank To Help Meet Debian Etch Deadline 89

Posted by kdawson from the pay-me-now-or-pay-me-later dept.
Da Massive writes, "Debian GNU/Linux is experimenting with a new project called Dunc-Tank, which is aimed at securing funding to pay two key release managers — Steve Langasek and Andi Barth — in an effort to ensure the forthcoming Debian 4.0, known as etch, is released on time in December." Dunc-Tank is not affiliated with the Debian Project directly, and in fact was controversial on the debian-private list.

New Auto-Seeding Torrent Server Released 240

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the making-life-easier dept.
ludwigvan968 writes "The University of Texas New Media Initiative in association with Google's Summer of Code program have been working on a project to make sharing files over the internet easier than ever before. Summer of Code intern Evan Wilson just released Project Snakebite, the first fully automatic BitTorrent server. Just as with a normal webserver, you drop files in a folder to share them. Snakebite takes care of generating torrent files and running a tracker and a seeder for each file. Additionally, it builds a user-customizable link page with all of your files. It will even register your Snakebite server with an easy to remember URL for people that can't remember their IP. Snakebite is free and open software and is currently released for Debian. It's fully portable to both Windows and OS X and the developers just need some help packaging it."

Buy Low, Spam High 159

Posted by Zonk from the anything-for-a-buck dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A recent study on spam has revealed that spammers see a return between 4.9% and 6% when selling stocks they have bought low and spammed the world with." From the article: "The researchers say that approximately 730 million spam e-mails are sent every week, 15% of which tout stocks. Other estimates of spam volumes are far higher. The study, by Professor Laura Frieder of Purdue University in the US and Professor Jonathan Zittrain from Oxford University's Internet Institute in the UK, analysed more than 75,000 unsolicited e-mails. All of the messages touting stocks and shares were sent between January 2004 and July 2005."

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