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Censorship

Court Nixes National Security Letter Gag Provision 128

Posted by kdawson from the speak-we-will dept.
2phar sends news that on Monday a federal appeals court ruled unconstitutional the gag provision of the Patriot Act's National Security Letters. Until the ruling, recipients of NSLs were legally forbidden from speaking out. "The appeals court invalidated parts of the statute that wrongly placed the burden on NSL recipients to initiate judicial review of gag orders, holding that the government has the burden to go to court and justify silencing NSL recipients. The appeals court also invalidated parts of the statute that narrowly limited judicial review of the gag orders — provisions that required the courts to treat the government's claims about the need for secrecy as conclusive and required the courts to defer entirely to the executive branch." Update: 12/16 22:26 GMT by KD : Julian Sanchez, Washington Editor for Ars Technica, sent this cautionary note: "Both the item on yesterday's National Security Letter ruling and the RawStory article to which it links are somewhat misleading. It remains the case that ISPs served with an NSL are forbidden from speaking out; the difference is that under the ruling it will be somewhat easier for the ISPs to challenge that gag order, and the government will have to do a little bit more to persuade a court to maintain the gag when it is challenged. But despite what the ACLU's press releases imply, this is really not a 'victory' for them, or at least only a very minor one. Relative to the decision the government was appealing, it would make at least as much sense to call it a victory for the government. The lower court had struck down the NSL provisions of the PATRIOT Act entirely. This ruling left both the NSL statute and the gag order in place, but made oversight slightly stricter. If you look back at the hearings from this summer, you'll see that most of the new ruling involves the court making all the minor adjustments that the government had urged them to make, and which the ACLU had urged them to reject as inadequate."
Announcements

Listen Online To Last HOPE Conference 49

Posted by Soulskill from the all-good-things dept.
Radio Statler! writes "This weekend marks 2600's last Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference at the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City. For those of you that can't make it this weekend, Radio Statler! will be streaming live from the event the whole weekend. There will be simulcasted talks, interviews with speakers and important guests, and music 24 hours a day for the duration of the con. Listeners can request music or submit questions by phone or IRC." The conference schedule (PDF) is available if you're curious about a particular seminar, though not all of them will be broadcast. CNet will be running some related stories about presentations from the conference. So far, they've written about a hacking how-to presentation. We briefly discussed the seventh and final HOPE conference last month.
The Internet

Why ISPs' "Stand" Against Child Porn Is Actually Not a Stand Against Child Porn 283

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the thinking-of-the-children-means-actually-thinking dept.
TechDirt has an insightful article on the recent push for ISPs to turn off Usenet access under the guise of fighting child pornography. Unfortunately, the "stand against child porn" isn't actually a stand at all, it seems — more like ignoring the issue while trying to snag some headlines and good will. "Taking a stand against child porn wouldn't be overly aggressively blocking access to internet destinations that may or may not have porn (and there's no review over the list to make sure that they're actually objectionable). Taking a stand against child porn would be hunting down those responsible for the child porn and making sure that they're dealt with appropriately... Also, this sets an awful precedent in that the ISPs can point out that it's ok for them to block "objectionable" content where they get to define what's objectionable without any review."
Microsoft

Submission + - Winutuxu - Is it Windows XP? is it Ubuntu?

Submitted by LiquidNitrogen
LiquidNitrogen writes: Previously discussed on UbuntuForums, Winutuxu is now making rounds on the internet as a heavily cracked though full working copy of windows XP SP2 with Ubuntu Human Theme built right in the OS. Winutuxu also comes with a number of open source applications pre-installed. Check out some of the screenshots of Winutuxu.
Education

Submission + - Acclimate to Online Education (dirjournal.com)

Submitted by
Rubab
Rubab writes: "There has been a dramatic push for online education over the last decade. At first only the occasional correspondence class was offered online. Then certain colleges offered degrees, and now most colleges and universities include online classes alongside traditional classrooms. And even those traditional classrooms often have an online component. You are hard-pressed to find a college classroom that does not include something on the internet.
But these online education plans are not for everyone. This is a shame since there are few other alternatives. Rather than look for classes that are not online, it is far better to acclimate yourself to the online education environment."
Television

Submission + - Reports of Apple TV's demise greatly exaggerated (roughlydrafted.com)

Submitted by DECS
DECS writes: This quarter's NPD report on the video downloads market contradicts the widely publicized reports by James McQuivey of Forrester Research, who has insisted all year that iTunes is headed for a fall, that users want ad-supported downloads, and that Apple TV is a tremendous failure. Daniel Eran Dilger describes why the pundits are wrong in a look at IPTV vs TVoIP, direct sales vs ads, and iTunes vs the studios: Apple TV Digital Disruption at Work: iTunes Takes 91% of Video Download Market
Security

Submission + - DNS attack ushers in new era of Phishing 2.0 (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Bergkamp10
Bergkamp10 writes: Researchers at Google and the Georgia Institute of technology are studying a new virtually undetectable form of attack that exploits 'open recursive' DNS servers, which are used to tell computers how to find each other on the Internet by translating domain names like google.com into numerical Internet Protocol addresses. Some 17 million open-recursive DNS servers are on the Internet, and unlike other DNS servers they answer all DNS lookup requests from any computer on the net, making them the perfect target for would be hackers and attackers. Criminals are apparently using these servers in tandem with new attack techniques to develop a generation 2.0 of phishing. Here's how an attack would work. A victim would visit a Web site or open a malicious attachment that would exploit a bug in his computer's software. Attackers would then change just one file in the Windows registry settings, telling the PC to go to the criminal's server for all DNS information. If the initial exploit code was not stopped by antivirus software, the attack would give attackers virtually undetectable control over the computer. Once they'd changed the Windows settings, the criminals could take victims to the correct Web sites most of the time, but then suddenly redirect them to phishing sites whenever they wanted — during an online banking session, for example. Because the attack is happening at the DNS level, anti-phishing software would not flag the phoney sites.
Toys

Submission + - Steampunk Tree House

Submitted by
bangzilla
bangzilla writes: "Soon to be appearing at Burning Man: The Steampunk Tree House. Built from recycled metal and wood and styled after the Victorian age of architecture, the Steampunk Tree House takes installation art in a wonderful new direction. Visitors may climb inside the tree house and hangout. The tree is made of steel with a wood and metal house perched within its branches. It was constructed in multiple components at two locations. It's currently in route to the Black Rock Desert of Nevada for Burning Man."
Music

Submission + - HMV Canada Cut's music CD prices because of piracy 1

Submitted by umStefa
umStefa writes: For the last few years the music industry has claimed that reduced CD sales are the result of piracy, while slashdotters have constantly defended piracy on the grounds that main stream music was overpriced. Well know the largest music retailer in Canada has gone and cut their prices on CD's to try and increase sales (CBC article). If successful could this spur music stores in other countries to reduce their prices? and could it have an effect on piracy rates? or is this simply a move destined to fail (by not increasing CD sales), thereby giving the music industry ammunition to get governments to pass legislation that will support their outdated business model. Only time will tell.
Biotech

Submission + - The Aroma of Coffee one Chemical at a Time

Submitted by SoyChemist
SoyChemist writes: When green coffee beans are left in a hot warehouse for extended periods of time, they get kinda funky. To understand exactly what kind of changes take place, researchers used a machine that separates every aromatic chemical that can be extracted from the unroasted beans and allows an expert to smell them one at a time. The same technique, gas chromatography olfactometry, has been used to study beer, wine, and other foodstuffs. In the case of coffee, extended storage in hot and humid conditions caused the production of chemicals with a cooked apple, smoky, clove, and fruity aroma.

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