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Comment "Just as effective"? (Score 1, Insightful) 327

by RabidJackal (#30128380) Attached to: Pirate Bay Shuts Down Tracker, Switches To Distributed Hash Table
I wouldn't go as far as saying that DHT&PEX is "just as effective" as using a tracker. I've found that with DHT enabled, a typical home router can get swamped extremely quickly and cause it to either crash or stop accepting new connections. With DHT disabled, I don't seem to have this problem.

This isn't just specific to me and my router; my friends have also experienced similar problems that were solved by disabling DHT.
Businesses

Pirate Bay Buyer Sued For Bankruptcy 102

Posted by Soulskill from the thanks-for-playing dept.
pharazon writes "Global Gaming Factory (GGF), the prospective buyer of file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, has been sued in the Stockholm District Court for bankruptcy due to an unpaid debt of up to 1.4 million SEK (Swedish Crowns, roughly 200k USD). The issuer is GGF's trading partner, Advatar Systems. GGF was recently de-listed from the Aktietorget.se equity market due to financial and reporting failures, but was able to re-list later. The Swedish Tax Office was also claiming large sums of unpaid taxes from the owners of GGF. The discussion in the Swedish media has been skeptical about the Pirate Bay deal due to financing issues."
Space

Irish Astronomers Investigate Sky Explosion 157

Posted by timothy from the stopping-snake-attacks-since-400-AD dept.
puroresu writes "Astronomers in Ireland have appealed to the public to contact them with eyewitness accounts of a massive explosion in the sky over the country. From the BBC: 'Astronomy Ireland chairman David Moore said: "So far, reports have been registered by residents in west Cork, Kerry, Cavan and as far north as Donegal, thus suggesting that this spectacular event may have been witnessed by people all over the country. In the past two decades there have been two major explosions in the skies over Ireland. When we investigated these, we were able to conclude that one was a Russian military satellite that exploded over the country, and the other was a rock from space."'"
Security

3-D Light System May Revolutionize Fingerprinting 71

Posted by kdawson from the 256-times-10 dept.
coondoggie writes "The US Department of Homeland Security's Science & Technology Directorate recently awarded almost $420,000 to a Kentucky company to further develop a contactless finger print/biometric system. The goal is a machine that can snap 10 fingerprints in high resolution in less than 10 seconds, without human intervention. This goal is beginning to look feasible. FlashScan3D is working with the University of Kentucky's Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments, and has developed a technique called 'structured light illumination' (WIPO patent description), where a pattern of dots or stripes is projected onto a curved or irregular surface."
Microsoft

Windows Server 2008 One Year On — Hit Or Miss? 386

Posted by Soulskill from the depends-what-you're-aiming-at dept.
magacious writes "Friday marked a year to the day since Microsoft launched Windows Server 2008, but did it have quite the impact the so-called software giant expected, or did it make more of a little squeak than a big bang? Before its arrival on 27 February 2008, it had been five long years since the release of the last major version of Windows Server. In a world that was moving on from simple client/server applications, and with server clouds on the horizon, Windows Server 2003 was looking long in the tooth. After a year of 'Vista' bashing, Microsoft needed its server project to be well received, just to relieve some pressure. After all, this time last year, the panacea of a well-received Windows 7 was still a long way off. So came the new approach: Windows Server 2008."
Debian

Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 "Lenny" Released 386

Posted by kdawson from the waiting's-over dept.
Alexander "Tolimar" Reichle-Schmehl writes "The Debian Project is pleased to announce the official release of Debian GNU/Linux version 5.0 (codenamed Lenny) after 22 months of constant development. With 12 supported computer architectures, more than 23,000 packages built from over 12,000 source packages and 63 languages for the new graphical installer, this release sets new records, once again. Software available in 5.0 includes Linux 2.6.26, KDE 3.5.10, Gnome 2.22.2, X.Org 7.3, OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, GIMP 2.4.7, Iceweasel 3.0.6, Apache 2.2.9, Xen 3.2.1 and GCC 4.3.2. Other notable features are X autoconfiguring itself, full read-write support for NTFS, Java programs in the main repository and a single Blu-Ray disc installation media. You can get the ISOs via bittorrent. The Debian Project also wishes to announce that this release is dedicated to Thiemo Seufer, a Debian Developer who died on December 26th, 2008 in a tragic car accident. As a valuable member of the Debian Project, he will be sorely missed."
Education

How Do I Start a University Transition To Open Source? 497

Posted by Soulskill from the baby-steps-version-control dept.
exmoron writes "I work at a small university (5,500 students) and am in a position to potentially influence future software purchasing decisions. I use a number of FOSS solutions at home (OpenOffice.org, Zotero, GIMP, VirtualBox). My university, on the other hand, is a Microsoft and proprietary software groupie (Vista boxes running MS Office 2007, Exchange email server, Endnote, Photoshop, Blackboard, etc.). I'd like to make an argument that going open source would save the university money and think through a gradual transition process to open source software (starting small, with something like replacing Endnote with Zotero, then MS Office with OpenOffice.org, and so on). Unfortunately, I can't find very good information online on site licenses for proprietary software. How much does a site-license for Endnote cost? What about a site license for MS Office for 2,000 computers? In short, what's the skinny on moving to open source? How much money could a university like mine save? Additionally, what other benefits are there to moving to open source that I could try to sell the university on? And what are the drawbacks (other than people whining about change)?"
AMD

Nvidia Is Trying To Make an x86 Chip 420

Posted by timothy from the if-all-your-friends-built-an-x86-chip dept.
Slatterz writes with a story from PC Authority which says that "Word has reached us that Nvidia is definitely working on an x86 chip and the firm is heavily recruiting x86 engineers all over Silicon Valley. The history behind this can be summarised by saying they bought an x86 team, and don't have a licence to make the parts. Given that the firm burned about every bridge imaginable with the two companies who can give them licences, Nvidia has about a zero chance of getting one."
Microsoft

Why Windows Must (and Will) Go Open Source 555

Posted by timothy from the lacks-the-ring-of-inevitability dept.
Attila Dimedici writes "Charles Babcock of Information Week published an interesting article suggesting that Microsoft will have to at least to some degree take Windows open source if they want to stay in business. He suggests that the money to be made from the things MS builds on top of Windows (Office, Server, SQL Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, etc.) is so much greater than what can be made from Windows itself that MS will have to give up the revenue stream from Windows in order to maintain these other, more valuable, revenue streams."
Music

Will the New RIAA Tactic Boost P2P File Sharing? 309

Posted by Soulskill from the fighting-a-losing-battle dept.
newtley writes "The RIAA's claim that it'll stop suing people may have serious consequences... for the RIAA. When it dropped its attack on seven University of Michigan students, Recording Industry vs. The People wondered if the move was linked to three investigations, with MediaSentry as the target, before Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth. Now, 'LSA sophomore Erin Breisacher said she stopped downloading music illegally after hearing about the possibility of receiving a lawsuit, but now that the RIAA has stopped pursuing lawsuits she "might start downloading again,"' says the Michigan Daily, going on to quote LSA senior Chad Nihranz as saying, 'I figure, if there aren't as many lawsuits they will come out with more software to allow students to download more.'" What about some of the other potential tactics we've discussed recently, such as the UK's proposed £20 per year film and music tax or the $5 monthly fee suggested in the US? Is there anything the RIAA can do to reduce illegal file-sharing without generating massive amounts of bad publicity?
Supercomputing

Roland Piquepaille Dies 288

Posted by kdawson from the in-memoriam dept.
overheardinpdx writes "I'm sad to report that longtime HPC technology pundit Roland Piquepaille (rpiquepa) died this past Tuesday. Many of you may know of him through his blog, his submissions to Slashdot, and his many years of software visualization work at SGI and Cray Research. I worked with Roland 20 years ago at Cray, where we both wrote tech stories for the company newsletter. With his focus on how new technologies modify our way of life, Roland was really doing Slashdot-type reporting before there was a World Wide Web. Rest in peace, Roland. You will be missed." The notice of Roland's passing was posted on the Cray Research alumni group on Linked-In by Matthias Fouquet-Lapar. There will be a ceremony on Monday Jan. 12, at 10:30 am Paris time, at Père Lachaise.
Linux

The 2008 Linux and Free Software Timeline 133

Posted by CmdrTaco from the year-in-review dept.
diegocgteleline.es writes "Here is LWN's eleventh annual timeline of significant events in the Linux and free software world for the year. As always, 2008 proved to be an interesting year, with great progress in useful software that made our systems better. Of course, there were some of the usual conflicts — patent woes, project politics, and arguments over freedom — but overall, the pace of free software progress stayed on its upwardly increasing trend. 2008 was a year that saw the end of SCO — or not — the rise of Linux-based 'netbooks,' multiple excellent distribution releases, more phones and embedded devices based on Linux, as well as major releases of software we will be using for years (X.org, Python, KDE, ...)."

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