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The Internet

Belgian ISP Scores Victory In Landmark P2P Case 76

secmartin writes "Belgian ISP Scarlet scored an important victory in the first major European test of copyright law. The interim decision forcing them to block transfers of copyrighted materials via P2P has been reversed, because the judge agreed with Scarlet that the measures the Belgian RIAA proposed to implement proved to be ineffective. A final decision is expected next year."
Math

Distributed.net Finds Optimal 25-Mark Golomb Ruler 265

kpearson writes "Distributed.net's 8-year-old OGR-25 distributed computing project has just proven conclusively that the predicted shortest 25-mark Golomb ruler is optimal. 'The total length of the ruler is 480, with marks at positions: 0 12 29 39 72 91 146 157 160 161 166 191 207 214 258 290 316 354 372 394 396 431 459 467 480. (This ruler may alternatively be expressed in terms of the distance between those positions, which is how dnetc displays them: 12-17-10-33-19-...).' 124,387 people participated in the project and two people found the shortest ruler, one on October 10, 2007 and the other on March 24, 2008."
Image

Schneier on Security Screenshot-sm 204

brothke writes "There is a perception in both the private and government sector, that security, both physical and digital, is something you can buy. Witness the mammoth growth of airport security products following 9/11, and the sheer number of vendors at security conferences. With that, government officials and corporate executives often think you can simply buy products and magically get instant security by flipping on the switch. The reality is that security is not something you can buy; it is something you must get." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.

Comment Re:Flash 10 hangs my browser (Score 1) 437

Yeah, I have the same experience on 3.0.4pre. Did they even bother to test it before shipping? I know Linux has a smaller desktop share and everything, but this is some pretty basic QA we're talking about. If Adobe's trying to improve PR with the OSS crowd, this certainly isn't the way.
Education

Australian State May Give Students Linux Laptops 302

Whiteox writes "The Australian Prime Minister's plan to equip high schools with 'one laptop per child' may go open source. Kevin Rudd's $56 million digital revolution will include 'laptops [that will] run on an open source operating system with a suite of open source applications like those packaged under Edubuntu. This would include Open Office for productivity software, Gimp for picture editing and the Firefox internet browser.' So far this has been considered for New South Wales and I think other states may follow."
Google

Journal Journal: Scientology Abuses YouTube to Silence Critics 5

The story was carried by major news outlets globally when actor and high-ranking Scientologist Jason Beghe sat down with outspoken Scientology critic Mark Bunker (XenuTV.com) and gave an interview regarding his former membership in the organization last week. A 3-minute teaser video graced YouTube, and met with fierce hostility from Scientology advocates. When Mark promised to upload the complete version of the interview on Thursday the 18
Windows

Journal Journal: You can't live in a house of cards.

When challenged with the inferiority of their favorite OS, a Windows fan might point out one feature or another as proof that their OS is better than the rest. But they make the critical mistake of confusing secondary functionality with the operating system's fundamental properties. MS Windows, in it's current state, will never be secure, nor will it ever be incredibly stable or reliable. Fundamental parts of the OS design are to blame for this, so this fact cannot change unless Windows is re-wr
Windows

Journal Journal: Excerpt from 'CyberSnare'

The marketing power of certain companies distorts reality to such an extent that one is led to firmly believe that the serious defects of some software products are, in fact, the latest must-have functionality. (Incidentally, the computer world has a fitting expression for this: "it's not a bug, it's a feature!"). Another part of the problem is that the specialists who have the knowledge necessary to undo these traps and point out the dangers and manipulations without being mistaken for "bash

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