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Announcements

Submission + - Edward Lorenz dead at 90 (reuters.com)

Unlikely_Hero writes: Edward Lorenz, considered one of the fathers of chaos theory, died of cancer Wednesday, April 16th at the age of 90. Lorenz was a meteorologist by trade but always loved numbers and in 1972 presented his paper "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" which, along with the shape of the Lorenz accelerator, gave birth to the term "butterfly effect".
Dr. Lorenz, you will be sorely missed.

Data Storage

Submission + - World's Oldest Recorded Sound Heard for First Time (msn.com)

Unlikely_Hero writes: The world's oldest known audio recording was played back for the first time today by a group of historians, audio engineers and scientists dedicated to preserving humanity's earliest sound recordings. The recording, made by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1860, was made via an early phonograph called a phonautograph . Interestingly enough, Scott never intended to play the recording back. He intended to study the recording visually. The press release and an mp3 file of the sound are available .
Announcements

Submission + - NID Admits ATT/Verizon help with wiretaps (msn.com) 1

Unlikely_Hero writes: National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell has confirmed in an interview with the El Paso Times that AT&T and Verizon have both been helping the Bush Administration conduct wiretaps. He also claims that only 100 Americans are under surveilance, that it takes 200 hours to assemble a FISA warrant on a telephone number and suggests that companies like AT&T and Verizon that "cooperate" (read, collude) with the Administration should be granted immunity from the lawsuits they currently face regarding the issue. Full text available here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20396282/
Sony

Submission + - PS3 Drags Down Q3 Profit, But Sony BeatsExpectatin

njkid1 writes: "The losses at Sony's game division are building up quickly, but Sony as a whole did better than many expected, thanks in large part to the recovering consumer electronics business, which posted record profit. The game division lost about $440 million in Q3, bringing Sony net profit down over 5 percent. http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=1510 1&ncid=AOLGAM000500000000030"
The Courts

Submission + - I Was a Cybercrook for the FBI

Hoi Polloi writes: Wired News has a series starting on internet crime. The first part covers the story of a cybercrook who specializes in credit card fraud who later turns around and works for the FBI.

You can find the story here.
The Courts

'Full-Pipe' FBI Internet Monitoring Questionably Legal 211

CNet is running a piece looking at what they refer to as a 'questionably legal' internet surveillance technique being employed by the FBI. In situations where isolating a specific IP address for a suspect is not possible, the FBI has taken to 'full-pipe' surveillance: all activity for a bank of IPs is recorded, and then data mining is used to attempt to isolate their target. The questionable legality of this situation results from a requirement that, under federal law, the FBI is required to use 'minimization'. The article describes it this way: "Federal law says that agents must 'minimize the interception of communications not otherwise subject to interception' and keep the supervising judge informed of what's happening. Minimization is designed to provide at least a modicum of privacy by limiting police eavesdropping on innocuous conversations." Full-pipe surveillance would seem to abandon that principle in favor of getting to the target faster.

Jack Thompson Weighs in on Oblivion 505

Robotron23 writes "Jack Thompson has commenced his attack on The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion by seeking appearances on several talk shows. A press release announcing his availability speaks of Take Two not having 'learned its lesson' over the Hot Coffee scandal, before continuing to detail the issues surrounding Oblivion's re-rating, in particular regarding nudity - concluding that the game content will spawn 'an even worse disaster' than occurred during Hot Coffee."

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