Comment Chu himself is a Nobel laureate (Score 1) 1
and was formerly at Berkeley, Stanford, and LLBL
Submission + - Google Streetview cars tapped private WiFi traffic (theregister.co.uk)
bratgitarre writes: Admit sustained criticism by European privacy advocates over its Streetview feature, Google has admitted (official announcement) its Streetview cars collected snippets of network traffic from open WiFi networks, contrary to a previous announcement. The search giant apparently noticed the privacy leak when responding to an audit request by Hamburg's privacy commissioner and promises deletion of the data.
Comment The FBI does NOT prosecute (Score 1) 215
The FBI does not prosecute:
The FBI does not prosecute cases. It provides investigative information to United States attorneys, who then use that information to decide whether to prosecute.
Outsourcing Unit To Be Set Up In Indian Jail 249
littlekorea writes "Indian outsourcing firm Radiant Info Systems has found yet another way to lower wages — hiring data entry clerks from a local prison. Some 200 inmates will be paid $2.20 a day to handle manual data entry tasks for Radiant's BPO deals in a pilot for the scheme. Radiant execs told the BBC that the deal will provide skills to inmates when they are released from prison. No doubt they would also be due for a pay raise." They're going to need to cut wages if they want to be competitive with the 100,000 US prisoners who work for 25 cents an hour.
Exam Board Deletes C and PHP From CompSci A-Levels 663
VitaminB52 writes "A-level computer science students will no longer be taught C, C#, or PHP from next year following a decision to withdraw the languages by the largest UK exam board. Schools teaching the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance's (AQA) COMP1 syllabus have been asked to use one of its other approved languages — Java, Pascal/Delphi, Python 2.6, Python 3.1, Visual Basic 6, and VB.Net 2008. Pascal/Delphi is 'highly recommended' by the exam board because it is stable and was designed to teach programming and problem-solving."
UK Court Finds Company Liable For Software Defects 205
normsky writes "A software company's stipulation that it couldn't be held accountable for the poor performance of its software was unfair and could not be enforced, the High Court has said. 'Pursuant to the Sale of Goods Act 1979, a term is to be implied into the contract that Entirety would be fit for the purpose for which it was bought, namely that the system would increase revenue and occupancy levels and would allow quicker check-in and check-out, including accurately processing groups and making changes to group reservations while preserving the accuracy of the system. I am satisfied that Entirety was not fit for the purpose for which it was sold,' his Honor Judge Toulmin wrote."
FBI To Prosecute "Money Mules" 215
An anonymous reader writes "A top FBI official said today that the agency is planning a law enforcement sweep against so-called 'money mules,' individuals willingly or unwittingly roped into helping organized computer crooks launder money stolen through online banking fraud, writes Krebsonsecurity.com. The author says he has interviewed more than 150 money mules, and find most fit into one of two camps: the not-so-bright, and those who suspect something's not right, but do it anyway. From the story: 'I find most mules fit into the latter group, and you can usually tell because these individuals often will admit to having set up a new account for the job separate from where they keep their meager savings or checking. When pressed as to why they did this, if they're honest most will say they weren't sure about the whole arrangement and wanted to protect their investments just in case their employers turned out to be less-than-honest.'"
Ultrasound As a Male Contraceptive 599
TeslaBoy writes "The BBC has an article about using ultrasound aimed at the testicles as a reversible male contraceptive. This can last for six months. With a grant of $100,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, researchers at the University of North Carolina will push ahead with more clinical trials, fine tuning, and safety tests."
The Telcos' Secret Anti-Net Neutrality Strategy 457
NoMoreHelio writes "The political blog ThinkProgress lays out big telecom's plan to attack net neutality. The blog obtained a secret PowerPoint presentation from a telecommunications industry front group (PPT) that outlines the industry strategy for defending against regulatory attempts by the FCC. The industry plans to partner with two conservative 'astroturfing' groups, best known for their work seeding the Tea Party movement. Today's revelation from ThinkProgress comes as Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) joined various telecom-funded front groups to unveil an anti-net neutrality bill."
Mandriva Up For Sale 167
The French company that creates and sells the Mandriva Linux distribution is up for sale. The news about Mandriva SA originally surfaced on a French Mandriva portal, and was confirmed by one of the potential buyers. Mandriva the distribution is a merger of the former MandrakeLinux and Conectiva distros. Mandriva the company is no stranger to hard times, having sought bankruptcy protection in the past.
TV Networks Don't Want DMCA Protection For YouTube 197
sburch79 writes "A brief filed in the Viacom v. Google case asserts that the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions were never meant to apply to sites like YouTube. It also goes on to say the if safe harbor were given to these sites, it would put too big a burden on networks to police their own material."
Scroogle Has Been Blocked 281
An anonymous reader writes "Scroogle, the secure third-party Google search interface, has been blocked by Google. Scroogle was an SSL-based search proxy that enabled one to search for and receive Google results over an SSL connection in a pseudo-anonymous manner."
Mozilla Reveals Firefox 4 Plans 570
Barence writes "Mozilla has given a breakdown of its plans for Firefox 4. Perhaps the most striking change to Firefox 4 is the user interface, which takes a great deal of inspiration from Google Chrome. 'Something UI designers have known for a long time is that the simpler an interface looks, the faster it will seem,' said director of Firefox Mike Beltzner during the presentation. Also mooted was the ability to give applications such as Gmail and Twitter their own permanent tabs for easy access, and the introduction of a 'switch to tab' button, allowing power users running hundreds of tabs to quickly find the one they want. Beltzner said Mozilla was also looking at replicating Chrome's tactic of silently updating the browser in the background, removing the annoying wait when Firefox first loads up."
Comment Re:UltraVNC - Single Click (Score 1) 152
Also, if your dealing with a shop that has to be PCI-DSS or as part of a PA-DSS application, the PCI folks want to see at least 256bit AES encryption. The 128-bit solution isn't enough. So far the closest we've found is Logmein and we only support clients on Windows or OSX.
So, let me get this straight. 128-bit AES in a popular, trusted , open source, "point to point" application isn't good enough. However Logmein, originally developed in Eastern Europe (and probably now supported from India or China) which is a closed box controlled by servers you have no idea what they're doing is fine because they somewhere have the magical text "256bit AES". Right.
Hey, buzzword compliance is what standards are all about!
Submission + - Videos/Reports of Unexplained Fireball Pour In (cnn.com) 1
insufflate10mg writes: Incredible footage, undeniable evidence and massive numbers of people in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Wisconsin phone in reports of an unbelievably large fireball. The footage from many surveillance cameras in the cities show a fireball seemingly larger than the city itself. Some are speculating it was a meteor, but the conspiracy theorists have dawned their tinfoil hats and feel the government will HAVE to explain this one!
