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Government

Submission + - Techie Mistakenly Arrested on Basis of IP Address (indiatimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Bangalore-based software engineer, Lakshmana Kailash K, was wrongly jailed for 50 days last year by the Pune police cyber cell. Lakshmana had been falsely accused of an internet crime — posting unseemly pictures on the web — and was arrested based on the internet protocol address. As it turned out, the IP address was not his. But by the time the police confirmed this and acted on it, he had already spent 50 harrowing days at the Yerwada Jail with hardened criminals, had tasted lathi beatings and was made to use one bowl to both eat and for the toilet.

Feed Science Daily: Life's Ingredients Detected In Far Off Galaxy (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
Astronomers have detected for the first time the molecules methanimine and hydrogen cyanide -- two ingredients that build life-forming amino acids -- in a galaxy some 250 million light years away. When combined with water, the molecules form glycene, the simplest amino acid and a building block of life on Earth.


United States

Submission + - Pulling Petrol Out of Thin Air (greengoldrush.org)

Submitted by
Dannah
Dannah writes: "Pulling something out of thin air may sound like magic, but a team of scientists at New Mexico's Sandia National Laboratory are closer to atomic surgeons. They are developing a prototype which uses solar energy to recycle carbon dioxide and produce liquid solar fuel."
KDE

KDE 4 Uses 40% Less Memory Than 3 Despite Eye-Candy 566

Posted by Zonk from the optimization-in-action dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Pro-Linux reports that KDE 4, scheduled to be released in January 2008, consumes almost 40% less memory than KDE 3.5, despite the fact that version 4 of the Free and Open Source desktop system includes a composited window manager and a revamped menu and applet interface. KDE developer Will Stephenson showcased KDE 4's 3D eye-candy on a 256Mb laptop with 1Ghz CPU and run-of-the-mill integrated graphics, pointing out that mini-optimizations haven't even yet been started." Update: 12/14 22:40 GMT by Z : Or, not so much. An anonymous reader writes "The author of the original KDE 3.5 vs KDE 4.0 memory comparison has come out with a more accurate benchmark. In reality, KDE 4.0 uses 110 MB more memory than KDE 3.5.8.
The Internet

Submission + - Setting up a small ISP? 1

Submitted by Mike_K
Mike_K writes: I live in a small condo building, and at our recent meeting we discussed the idea of sharing internet between the codos. The only problem is that we would rather not expose those actually providing the service to harassment from RIAA, MPAA, etc. The best idea I can come up with to solve this is to create a small ISP for our building and give everybody a static IP. I know enough about networking to be able to set this up, but I don't know anything about actually setting up an ISP. Can anybody help me with where to start looking? Would this ever be economical? Is there a better way to go? We are located in a big city with Comcast and Verizon being choices for consumer internet, and close to some big schools with lots of bandwidth, if you think that would help.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Amazon Kindle Hacked to Allow Encrypted Mobi Books (techluver.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "Igor Skochinsky didn't take too long to crack Amazon Kindle's DRM. On his 'Reversing Everything' blog he details the workaround to read encrypted Mobi books on Kindle, which involves two Python scripts. In his words, "Well, I've discovered the algorithm used to generate the PID and was able to use it on Fictionwise, but there was another catch. AZW files have a flag set in the DRM info which is not present in books bought from other vendors. After fixing that, I could read the book on Kindle." ( http://techluver.com/2007/12/13/amazon-kindle-hacked-to-allow-encrypted-mobi-books/ )"
Privacy

Submission + - Western Digitial to cripple sharing media content.

Submitted by /.Rooster
/.Rooster writes: Over at the BBC they discuss plans by Western Digital to prevent the sharing of media files as stored on their network drives regardless of whether the content is original and not copy-protected or not. Is this the future of NAS in a world paranoid about DRM and piracy? How does this help the genuine content producers who want to share their work, and more specifically how does this affect my MythTV setup. I don't envisage it will go down terribly well in the open source community but then just how long will it take to cirumvent the measure and should we all just boycott WD drives from now on?
Software

Journal Journal: PDF now ISO 32000

Journal by nickull
It is official. As Jim King himself blogged today, Adobe has received word that the Ballot for approval of PDF 1.7 to become the ISO 32000 Standard (DIS) has passed by a vote of 13 yes votes and only 1 negative. The report breaks down as follows:
Security

Submission + - Privacy breach in passport applications in Canada (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by
Joanna Karczmarek
Joanna Karczmarek writes: "Passport applicant finds massive privacy breach while filling out their on-line form at the Government of Canada passport website. From the article: "A security flaw in Passport Canada's website has allowed easy access to the personal information — including social insurance numbers, dates of birth and driver's licence numbers — of people applying for new passports." And it did not require any know-how: "The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could easily view the applications of others by altering one character in the Internet address displayed by his Web browser." Ooops!"
Privacy

Submission + - Canadian passport applications easily seen online (consumedconsumer.org)

Submitted by
scorilo
scorilo writes: "Other people's information can be easily accessed by creating a passport application online and then altering characters in your browser's address bar and going to that URL. The flaw was discovered by Jamie Laning, an IT worker at Algonquin Automotive, in Huntsville, Ontario. The available data includes SINs, driver's licence numbers, mailing addresses, business and phone numbers, federal ID card numbers and even a firearms licence number. Passport Canada claims the flaw has been fixed, but Globe and Mail found that this is not the case. Canada does not have legislation requiring organizations to disclose security breaches, unlike in the US, where a majority of the states have enacted such legislation."
Privacy

Submission + - Privacy Breach at Canadian Passport Office

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Globe and Mail is reporting a significant privacy breach in the Canadian online passport system. From the somewhat blurry image provided, it seems that by replacing a URL parameter other applicants personal information, including Social Insurance numbers, Drivers License numbers and addresses, could be seen. Worst of all the passport office refers to it as 'an isolated anomaly', in an otherwise 'very highly secure application' — not likely.
Education

Submission + - Alabama school to be first in US to get XO laptop (al.com)

Submitted by
CountryGeek
CountryGeek writes: "Birmingham city schools will be the first in the nation to receive laptop computers designed for children in third-world countries under an agreement completed over the weekend, Mayor Larry Langford announced Monday. Langford signed a purchase agreement for 15,000 laptops from One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit foundation whose goal is to provide every child in the world with access to technology."

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