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Nobel Winner Says Internet Might Have Stopped Hitler 290

There can be little doubt that the internet has changed everyday life for the better, but Nobel literature prize winner Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has upped the ante by saying an earlier introduction of information technology could even have prevented World War II. "Who knows, if the Internet had existed at the time, perhaps Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded — ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day," he said. I have to agree with him. If England had been able to send a "Stop Hitler Now!" petition to 10 friendly countries, those countries could have each sent it to 10 more friendly countries before the invasion of Poland, and one of history's greatest tragedies might have been averted.
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Slashdot's Disagree Mail 135

This installment of Disagree Mail highlights a man's concern about illegal cloning in the Hollywood community, a guy who is sick of US imperialism and his low karma, and an example of the kind of people you don't want as roommates in college. Read below to find out just how crazy, angry and irresponsible it gets.
Music

Submission + - Gizmodo calls for RIAA boycott in March

An anonymous reader writes: Gadget review site Gizmodo is calling for a boycott of RIAA-signed bands in the month of March: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/putt ing-our-money-where-our-mouths-are-boycott-the-ria a-in-march-239281.php Instead, they suggest spending your greenbacks on indy artists, or attending concerts/buying merchandise from your favorite RIAA artist (which puts money in the artist's pocket), rather than buying recordings (and further enriching the fat cats at the RIAA). All I can say is, "hell yes!"
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Blizzard Sues Bot Creator; Seeks Customer Info

An anonymous reader writes: After filing a prayer for relief to continue the selling of his WoWGlider, an automation bot for Blizzard's fanatical World of Warcraft, Michael Donnelly has again found himself in some deep water: Blizzard has retorted demanding WoWGlider be shut down, his URL, and financial compensation, but more interestingly they want all of WoWGlider's sales records. Presumably, Blizzard will cross-reference this with their current user database and ban anyone who bought the program. Furthermore, Blizzard claims that WoWGlider violates copyrights by accessing the game client's RAM space, a process which is also done by every anti-virus program. So why is there no Blizzard vs. Symantec?
The Courts

Politicians Wising up on Game Legislation? 66

Blackjack writes "Ars Technica looks at recent failures to pass laws regulating the sales of violent video games. They ask whether politicians are finally wising up to First Amendment issues and the costs associated with lawsuits resulting from the laws. Recent attempts to pass video game legislation in Mississippi, Utah, and Indiana have either failed or been put on indefinite hold. 'Now, state lawmakers are more cognizant of the constitutionality issues at stake. The judicial landscape is littered with the charred husks of laws passed by Illinois, Washington, Michigan, California, Louisiana, and others. All of them tried in some way or another to regulate the sale of violent video games to children, and all of them were struck down on First Amendment grounds.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Wikipedia - Problem Administrators?

Moryath writes: High ranking Wikipedia admins — caught trying to shut people up for exposing their deeds, and then posting "anonymous" flames at them?

Wikipedia seems to be in a tailspin lately. What can they do to pull out of it? Or is the entrenched cronyism and corruption of the administrators too much for it?
Television

Submission + - BBC mulls less DRM; wider OS support for iPlayer

zombieflesheater writes: "The BBC has detailed its proposals for new on-demand services to be made available through its iPlayer software. Among the offerings are TV catch-up over Internet and live TV streaming. Now the Beeb asking its customers how they think the services should work. Under its new Public Value Test process, the BBC trust has started a public consultation to gather license payer opinion. Among other things, Auntie wants to know whether the proposed service should be made available to consumers who are not using Microsoft software. The removal of DRM restrictions from certain audio downloads are also being considered. The consultation period ends on 28 March."
Spam

Submission + - Alleged spammer tries to take Spamhaus.org, foiled

norml writes: Last year, electronic marketing firm e360insight sued the anti-spam blocklist Spamhaus in U.S. District Court over being included on the Spamhaus website as an alleged spammer. Since Spamhaus is a UK company, the jurisdiction of a U.S. Court may be questionable, but Spamhaus found (the hard way) that the court was still willing to enter a default judgment. e360insight then attempted to take Spamhaus.org by using the US Marshall service to try to seize it from its domain registrar, Tucows, but failed on a technicality.

Sadly, the latest development is that the US Federal Court in Illinois has granted e360's motion to enter its judgment against Spamhaus in the U.S. District Court of Northern Mississippi, allowing the seizure from Tucows, which maintains offices there for one of its products.

This would be bad news. However, Spamhaus hasn't been sitting around idly waiting to be crushed by the U.S. legal system. When Tucows was served, e360 had the nasty shock of discovering that Tucows was no longer the registrar for Spamhaus. Spamhaus.org has now been registered through Gandi in France. We're pretty sure that the French aren't about to hand over a UK company's domain registration due to a U.S. judgment.

The Spamhaus guys can be found to be going "neener, neener, neener!" in news:news.admin.net-abuse.email in response to e360's posting there.

http://www.spamhaus.org/organization/statement.las so?ref=3 http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2006 102700261694 http://www.e360insight.com/news.php

Comment Re:I want to know... (Score 1) 106

I'm using it in western Washington state, where it rains a lot, and the rain doesn't seem to have much of an effect. The lightning strike on the tower, however, knocked it out for two days. That makes the overall reliability about the same as the local DSL providers.

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