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Data Storage

Ubuntu May Be Killing Your Laptop's Hard Drive 419

Posted by kdawson from the saving-power-at-what-cost dept.
wwrmn writes "There's a debate going on over at bugs.launchpad.net on whether it's the Ubuntu, BIOS, hard-drive manufacturer, or pick-any-player's fault, but Ubuntu (and perhaps any OS) may be dramatically shortening the life of your laptop's hard drive due to an aggressive power-saving feature / acpi bug / OS configuration. Regardless of where the fault lies or how it's fixed, you might want to take some actions now to try to prevent the damage."
Spam

Submission + - BlueSecurity - Round Two!

Submitted by
user24
user24 writes: "We all remember the Blue Security DDOS attack, and now it looks like the same group of spammers who took them down are attacking several high-profile anti spam forums in a similar co-ordinated botnet DDOS.

zdnet has the scoop:

"The spammers behind last year's destruction of Blue Security are back with a vengeance, using a variant of the 'Storm Worm' malware to launch a sustained distributed denial-of-service attack against three anti-spam services.

SpamhausThe ongoing attacks, which use botnets of hijacked Windows computers, successfully shut down the Web servers that power the Spamhaus Project, URIBL (Realtime URI Blacklists) and SURBL (Spam URI Realtime Blocklists (SURBL)."

Check out the castlecops forum, where members of these antispam groups are picking over the details of the attack."
Google

Submission + - EBay pulls from Google AdWords (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
InfoWorldMike
InfoWorldMike writes: "EBay has pulled all of its paid search ads from Google AdWords network in the U.S in an eyebrow-raising move likely to be interpreted in the industry as a sign of deteriorating relations between the two Internet giants. An eBay spokesman characterized the decision to pull the U.S. Google ads as an instance in a continued experiment eBay does to determine the best allocation of its advertising and marketing budget. But a source familiar with the situation said the move is an angry reaction by eBay's management to Google's decision to hold a protest party concurrent with the start of eBay Live, the company's annual conference for merchants."
Google

The Downide of Your ISP Turning to Gmail 266

Posted by kdawson from the Google-Apps-Partner-Edition dept.
SlinkySausage writes "Google is offering ISPs the opportunity to turn over their entire email operation to Google, with all customer email hosted as Gmail accounts. This would allow Google to grow its user base rapidly (Google is a distant third with 51M users compared to Yahoo's 250M and Hotmail's 228M). There are some obvious benefits to end users — Google is offering ISPs mailboxes of up to 10GB per user. APCMag.com has posted an interesting piece looking at the dark side of Google's offer. Not least is in its reinforcing of the attachment people have to their ISP's email address, making it harder to change ISPs if a better deal comes along."
Privacy

Submission + - Lip Reading Surveillance Cameras "To Stop Terr

Submitted by mrogers
mrogers writes: Infowars brings us the following news from the UK, which is fast becoming the front line of the war on privacy:

"Read my lips...." used to be a figurative saying. Now the British government is considering taking it literally by adding lip reading technology to some of the four million or so surveillance cameras in order identify terrorists and criminals by watching what everyone says.
Perhaps the lip-reading cameras and the shouting cameras will find something to talk about.

Feed UK Constitution Committee to investigate surveillance overload (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

For those dwelling in England who enjoy a touch of privacy in their day to day lives, help could be on the way. Amidst the smattering of new surveillance methods being installed and implemented within the nation's border comes a second inquiry into the "constitutional implications" of such invasive measures. If you'll recall, the Commons' Home Affairs committee has already planned its own review, and now the UK's Constitution Committee will be "conducting an inquiry on the consequences of the collection and use of surveillance and personal data by the State." Basically, the group is trying to visualize just how damaging all these CCTV installations, car trackers, and behavior monitors are on the "relationship between individuals and institutions." Another aspect will be to scrutinize whether UK citizens need additional protection under the law from such voyeuristic tactics, and judging solely by the sheer multitude of surveying going on over there, we couldn't complain with a little extra shielding. [Warning: Word Document read link]

[Via El Reg]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Media

Submission + - Help Save Net Radio

Submitted by shdowhawk
shdowhawk writes: On March 2, 2007 the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) set in action a bill which increased Internet radio's royalty burden between 300 and 1200 percent and thereby jeopardized the industry's future. There is an online movement currently set up to help protest this bill. http://www.savenetradio.org/ was established to shed light on the situation, to help the protest to save internet radio, and to promote all the bills that have been set up to try and overturn the March 2 action bill.
Security

Submission + - Partial Hack for Short Key Quantum Cryptography

Submitted by sarkeizen
sarkeizen writes: According to nature.com a team of researchers has, for the first time, hacked into a network protected by quantum encryption. . The MIT group was able to entangle a photons polarization with its momentum. Which allowed them to get up to 40% of the information by measuring the particles momentum without significantly disturbing it's polarization. The researchers agreed that this kind of attack, although interested could be rendered useless by increasing the key length.
The Internet

Submission + - Novablade.com stolen, sold to highest bidder

Submitted by hidingintheclosetwithaplatypus
hidingintheclosetwithaplatypus writes: Damien & Trisha Buchwald (previously) from Novablade.com have loosed the dogs of war after their registrar, Network Solutions, refused to allow them to renew or transfer their domain name and who have now sold it to another company to be auctioned off. Apparently the name's worth around US$16,000, and the Buchwalds are looking for help from anywhere they can get it.

We are infuriated, upset, and feel like we have had our very souls stolen from us and sold. This is a very disgusting, underhanded act that deserves justification.
Space

Submission + - Hawking Enjoys Zero-G Ride

Submitted by
user24
user24 writes: "TimesOnline reports: "For more than 40 years, Stephen Hawking has studied the mysteries of the universe from his wheelchair. Last night, he broke free of his disability and indulged his passion for gravitational phenomena in a finely stage-managed operation 32,000 feet above the Atlantic.

"It was amazing," he said after he returned from his experience of weightlessness. "The zero-g bit was wonderful . . . I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come."""

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