surfingmarmot writes "An HBO executive has figured out the problem with DRM acceptance — it's the name. HBO's chief technology officer Bob Zitter now wants to refer to the technology as Digital Consumer Enablement. Because, you see, DRM actually helps consumers by getting more content into their hands. The company already has HD movies on demand ready to go, but is delaying them because of ownership concerns. Says Zitter, 'Digital Consumer Enablement would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods. "I don't want to use the term DRM any longer," said Zitter, who added that content-protection technology could enable various new applications for cable operators.'"

CowboyRobot writes "ACM Queue's current issue on Open Source Security includes a short article by Eric Allman of Sendmail on how to handle security bugs in your code. "Patch with full disclosure. Particularly popular in the open source world (where releasing a patch is tantamount to full disclosure anyway), this involves opening the kimono and exposing everything, including a detailed description of the problem and how the exploit works... Generally speaking, it is easier to find bugs in open source code, and hence the pressure to release quickly may be higher.""

An anonymous reader writes "Computerworld reports that Google is racing to head off a media industry backlash over its video Web site YouTube and will soon offer antipiracy technologies to help all copyright holders thwart unauthorized video sharing. But YouTube has also said that the process of identifying copyrighted material is not automated and will require the cooperation of media company partners."

evil agent passes along an article in Scientific American reporting that new radiocarbon dating techniques have cast doubt on the accepted story of how the Americas were populated. In the traditional view, "[M]igrants out of northeast Asia slipped into the Americas bearing finely shaped stone projectiles, so-called 'Clovis points,' after the town in New Mexico where they were first uncovered. This Clovis culture rapidly spread throughout the empty continents and by 1,000 years after their arrival had reached the southernmost tip of what is now South America, making them the original ancestors of indigenous Americans." The new dating of Clovis sites suggests that "Clovis" was not a people, but rather a technology. That is, a new and more efficient method of making arrowheads for hunting spread rapidly through a pre-existing population in both North and South America, over at most 350 years.