6955778
submission
sTeF writes:
More than 100 specialists from 20 different countries participated last week in the Culture Forum of Barcelona and created an international coalition to urge respect for the civil rights of citizens and artists in the digital era.
The Charter will be presented to more than 1000 political institutions and governments, including WIPO, the Obama administration, the European Commission and many national governments. Some of these organizations have already shown an interest in listening to the demands. Representatives of the European Commission and official observers from the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, among others, were present during the approval of the Charter.
633688
submission
sTeF writes:
There is a lot of scientific effort being put into protecting our private data. Even the big seem to be interested, recently Microsoft acquired Stefan Brands' Credentica. Also of interest seems to be this research by Amit Sahai:
... Sahai has come up with a mathematical system — known as functional encryption — that will not only help to simplify the encryption of data in servers but will also allow access to the data in an intuitive way, making it much harder for hackers to gain access to sensitive information but much easier for programmers to secure it.
There is some additional info in the article, but it leaves some details open. Maybe some informed readers want to comment on this? :)
603076
submission
sTeF writes:
I hope this is an AFJ, Microsoft wins: "The much-debated open document standard Office Open XML (OOXML) has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), according to a document obtained by Intellectual Property Watch."
161885
submission
sTeF writes:
Keith Packard has announced the inclusion of a free Intel driver into Xorg:
In addition to Intel 965GM chipset support, the X.org 2.0 driver adds native video mode programming support for all chipsets from i830 forward. The driver supports automatic video mode detection and selection, monitor hot plug, dynamic extended and merged desktops and per-monitor screen rotation.
The official Intel Linux Graphics website even reveals links to Ubuntu developers, could we also find a link to the Dell Ubuntu offering? Ubuntu will be much easier to setup for 3D accelerated desktops (think Beryl) than on competing ATI and NVidia chipsets. Maybe this will make the ATI announcement from earlier to day more credible if they want to hold on to Linuxers.
6293
submission
sTeF writes:
Did you know that in 2004 alone, more than 29,000 wiretaps were approved, seven times the number authorized by U.S. courts that same year. Does it work? Foreign Policy has a nice summary.
