Comment Re:Biology Question (Score 5, Funny) 255
To be completely fair, breast cancer is in the breasts whereas prostate cancer is in the anus.
The First Geek Wedding At a LinuxFest 93
At the Ohio LinuxFest yesterday, two Linux geeks were married — or had their projects merged into a single trunk, as the officiant, Lord Drachenblut, put it. The wedding of Randy Noseworthy (proprietor of the Juiced Penguin) and Janet Edmonson was announced last week and was live-tweeted by at least one attendee — here's his photo of the happy couple. There's also a video of the ceremony, at which Jon "Maddog" Hall offered a blessing via pre-recorded audio.
Update: 09/26 20:03 GMT by KD : In the comments, anyaristow notes that this wasn't the first such wedding; Rob Landly and Fade were married at Penguicon in 2007, with Steve Jackson officiating and Eric Raymond as best man.
Update: 09/26 20:03 GMT by KD : In the comments, anyaristow notes that this wasn't the first such wedding; Rob Landly and Fade were married at Penguicon in 2007, with Steve Jackson officiating and Eric Raymond as best man.
New York Times Site Pop-Up Says Your Computer Is Infected 403
Zott writes "Apparently, 'some readers' of the New York Times site are getting a bit more with their news: an apparently syndicated adware popup with a faux virus scan of the user's computer indicating they are infected, and a link to go download a fix now. It's entertaining when a Mac user gets it, but clearly downloading an .exe file isn't a good way to keep your computer clean ..." Update: 09/14 03:20 GMT by T : Troy encountered this malware, "and did basic forensics. Summary: iframe ad then series of HTML/JS redirects, ending at a fake virus scanner page with a "Scan" link (made to look like a dialog box button) that downloaded malware." Nice explanation!
Comment Brilliant Investigation Tactics (Score 1, Interesting) 543
Kudos to the journalists at TSG who not only learned Malik's identity but also those of his associates. I found this gem in the article:
Marquis's claim that he is not in contact with Malik is belied by TSG's own computer server logs. Records indicate that Malik immediately shared with Marquis the addresses of stories about Pranknet that appeared on TSG. The stories, which each carried a distinctive url that was created solely for Malik's viewing, were first provided to the Pranknet founder in e-mails sent to his Gmail account (axis.r9@gmail.com). On three occasions over the last six weeks, within minutes of Malik clicking a link (which recorded his IP address in Windsor), Marquis also looked at the story, resulting in his Scarborough IP being memorialized on TSG's servers.
When confronted with this strange coincidence, Marquis could offer little beyond, "Hmmmm."
Comment Re:This is a crock (Score 1) 472
That's a fascinating experiment. Do you remember the title of this Nova episode? I'd really love to watch it. Thanks!
$10M For Unmanned Aircraft That Can Perch Like a Bird 176
coondoggie writes "Unmanned aircraft maker AeroVironment got an additional $5.4 million to further develop a diminutive aircraft that can fly into tight spaces undetected, perch and send live surveillance information to its handlers. Last Fall, AeroVironment, got $4.6 million initial funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop the Stealthy, Persistent, Perch and Stare Air Vehicle System (SP2S), which is being built on the company's one-pound, 29-inch wingspan battery-powered Wasp unmanned system."
97 of Top 100 Classified Sites Are Craigslist 193
According to a recent report, 97 of the top 100 classified sites are just localized versions of Craigslist, up from 88 just last year. Combine that with a massive rise in traffic to classified sites in general and you have a recipe for one raging behemoth. "Craigslist isn't just crushing the newspaper industry and crowding out other classified sites. It's also taking an increasing slice of total U.S Internet traffic: the site's market share in February was up 90% year over year, accounting for about 2.5% of total US Web site visits."
Texas Board of Education Supports Evolution 344
somanyrobots writes with this excerpt from the Dallas News:
"In a major defeat for social conservatives, a sharply divided State Board of Education voted Thursday to abandon a longtime state requirement that high school science teachers cover what some critics consider to be 'weaknesses' in the theory of evolution. Under the science curriculum standards recommended by a panel of science educators and tentatively adopted by the board, biology teachers and biology textbooks would no longer have to cover the 'strengths and weaknesses' of Charles Darwin's theory that man evolved from lower forms of life. Texas is particularly influential to textbook publishers because of the size of its market, so this could have a ripple effect on textbooks used in other states as well."
UK Police To Step Up Hacking of Home PCs 595
toomanyairmiles writes "The Times of London reports that the United Kingdom's Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain to routinely hack into people's personal computers without a warrant. The move, which follows a decision by the European Union's council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state that drives 'a coach and horses' through privacy laws."
The Exact Cause of the Zune Meltdown 465
An anonymous reader writes "The Zune 30 failure became national news when it happened just three days ago. The source code for the bad driver leaked soon after, and now, someone has come up with a very detailed explanation for where the code was bad as well as a number of solutions to deal with it. From a coding/QA standpoint, one has to wonder how this bug was missed if the quality assurance team wasn't slacking off. Worse yet: this bug affects every Windows CE device carrying this driver."
AT&T 3G Upgrades Degrade 2G Signal Strength 210
Timothy R. Butler writes "Much to the chagrin of owners of various 2G cell phones on AT&T Mobility's network, including the highly visible (and originally highly expensive) first-generation iPhone, we have discovered that AT&T has been quietly adjusting its network in ways that degrade 2G network performance as it has sought to build out its next-generation 3G network. Many of the phones affected, including BlackBerry devices, are still well within their two-year contract period."
Google Kills Yahoo Ad Deal 79
mytrip writes "Google has pulled the plug on on a search-ad partnership with Yahoo that would have given Yahoo major new revenue but that raised antitrust concerns. 'After four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it's clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement,' said David Drummond, Google's chief legal officer in a blog post Wednesday."
University Tries "One iPhone Per Student" 281
alphadogg writes to tell us that one freshman class has a little more than usual to be excited about. When students at Abilene Christian University showed up for their first days of class they were greeted with the choice of either a new iPhone 3g or an iPod Touch plus a package of custom web apps to use on them. "The hardware is part of the Texas university's pilot mobile learning project, which has been gestating for over a year. About 650 first-year students chose the iPhone, and about 300 the iPod Touch, which is a very similar device but without the 3G radio (both devices incorporate an 802.11g Wi-Fi adapter). ACU pays for the hardware, student (or their parents) select and pay for their monthly AT&T service plan."
Birth of a New African Ocean 261
Khemisty writes "Formation of an ocean is a rare event, one no scientist has ever witnessed. Yet this geophysical nativity is unfolding today in one of the hottest and most inhospitable corners of the globe. Africa is splitting apart at the seams. From the southern tip of the Red Sea southward through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, the continent is coming unstitched along a zone called the East African Rift." This stretching of the earth's crust has been going on for 20 million years, and within another 10 million the Red Sea will have broken through to create a new sea.
Alarm Raised For "Clickjacking" Browser Exploit 308
Shipment Date writes "ZDNet's Zero Day blog has some new information on what looks like a scary new browser exploit/threat affecting all the major desktop platforms — Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Adobe Flash. The threat, called Clickjacking, was to be discussed at the OWASP conference but was nixed at the last minute at hte request of affected vendors. From the article: 'In a nutshell, it's when you visit a malicious website and the attacker is able to take control of the links that your browser visits. The problem affects all of the different browsers except something like lynx. The issue has nothing to do with JavaScript so turning JavaScript off in your browser will not help you.'"
