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Submission + - New teeny tiny RFID chips

Submitted by
paltemalte
paltemalte writes: "Hitachi has just come out with a new crop of RFID tags, measuring only 0.05 x 0.05 millimeters. Compare that with the previously smallest chips at 0.4 x 0.4 millimeters. The new chips width is slightly smaller than the width of a human hair. These new chips could put an end to shoplifting forever, but they could also be used by a government or other entity to 'dust' crowds or areas, easily tagging anyone present without their knowledge or consent. Think easy tracking of dissenters or demonstrators. Will someone come up with a surefire way of neutralizing chips that may be on your body or in your clothing?"
The Internet

Submission + - Canadian ISPs Send Thousands of Copyright Notices

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The CBC reports that Canadian Internet service providers are passing along thousands of copyright infringement notifications from U.S. copyright lobby groups such as the Business Sofware Alliance to subscribers under a system called notice and notice. Michael Geist comments that unlike the U.S. takedown approach, the Canadian system is proving effective while protecting privacy and free speech.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's Love Letter to IBM

Submitted by
Andy Updegrove
Andy Updegrove writes: "Microsoft decided to escalate the OOXML/ODF air wars yesterday by sending IBM a "valentine," posted as an open letter at the Microsoft Interoperability Web page. In that letter, Microsoft recalls its passive role during the adoption by ISO/IEC of ODF forcefully accuses IBM of waging a global, hypocritical campaign to thwart the approval of OOXML in JTC 1. The action is hardly surprising, and from a strategic point of view even overdue. Till now, Microsoft has taken the position that many of the comments offered in JTC1 during the contradictions phase will prove to be neutral, or even positive, but soon they will become public. If they turn out to be strongly negative, Microsoft will need to revert to a Plan B, such as a plot by IBM "to limit customer choice," which is exactly what Microsoft appears to have decided to do."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft, IBM in slap-fight over open documents

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Microsoft went on the offensive Wednesday with a Valentine's Day attack on IBM openly accusing its rival of trying to subvert Microsoft's efforts to standardize its new document format and in turn destabilize customer choices. "A lot of hype — and smoke and mirrors obfuscation — surrounds interoperability these days," Microsoft wrote in an open letter published on its Web site. Meanwhile, Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and open standards, wrote on his blog: "The OpenDocument Format ISO standard is vastly superior to the Open XML spec." Sutor also said in his post: "ODF is what the world needs today to drive competition, innovation and lower costs for customers. It is an example of a real open standard versus a vendor-dictated spec that documents proprietary products via XML. ODF is about the future, Open XML is about the past. We voted for the future." http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/021407-micro soft-ibm-formats.html"
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Gamespy shocks and offends

Submitted by
Sol Almande
Sol Almande writes: "Well well well, would you believe it? Gamespy.com's own random name generator, Naminator [gamespy], has managed to shock and offend in a breathlessly brazen manner. In as little as two words Gamespy has conjured up both a defamation of a major religious figurehead as well as a reference to a sexual act still banned in some American states. In a move that surely breaks its own Ts and Cs, Gamespy suggests that I might like to change my in-game nickname to "BuggeringBuddah" Screengrab [imageshack] Exactly how successful this name will be at subverting/angering/amusing the online masses is as yet unknown; I'm still recovering slowly over a nice cup of green tea while realigning my bent-out chi."
Security

Submission + - Critical flaw in current Firefox discovered

Submitted by HuckleCom
HuckleCom writes: F-Secure has a blog post regarding the latest version of Firefox and a vulnerability that allows malicious javascript code to manipulate any of your cookies.

From the Blog: "There's a new bug reported in the way Firefox handles writes to the 'location.hostname' DOM property. The vulnerability could potentially allow a malicious website to manipulate the authentication cookies for a third-party site."

From what I can recollect, this seems to be the first vulnerability discovered in the actual current version of Firefox — at least for a good long time.
Businesses

Submission + - Healthcare IT Hurting at Kaiser Permanente

Submitted by
Justen
Justen writes: "The front page of this morning's Los Angeles Times has a story investigating the disaster of HealthConnect, "Kaiser Permanente's $4-billion effort to computerize the medical records of its 8.6 million members." The system "has encountered repeated technical problems, leading to potentially dangerous incidents... At times, doctors and medical staff at the nation's largest nonprofit health maintenance organization haven't had access to crucial patient information, and system outages have led to delays in emergency room care... Other problems have included malfunctioning bedside scanners meant to ensure that patients receive the correct medication... A 772-page problem report covering Feb. 27 through Nov. 5 of last year showed nearly two dozen reported instances in which Health Connect's unreliability may have risked patient safety." Amidst all the problems, "Kaiser recently demanded...a rate cut from its technology vendors, and some IT employees [were forced] took as long as a week off without pay." Says one former IT manager: "This is the worst [technology] project I have seen in my 25 years in the business.""
The Media

Submission + - biggest military computer hacker back in court ..

Submitted by
rs232
rs232 writes: "biggest military computer hacker back in court ..

Gary McKinnon, who carried out the 'biggest military computer hack of all time', is back in court to fight his extradition to the US. His lawyers argue that he was subject to improper threats that infringed the European Convention on Human Rights and also that he would be subject to an unknown amount of pre-trial detention.

McKinnon, hack consisted of logging into passwordless desktops and installing RemotelyAnywhere in a search for evidence of a UFO coverup by Nasa, and/or the Pentagon. He states that the systems was wide open and at the same tims as him, there were hackers online from Denmark, Italy, Germany, Turkey and Thailand. He also states that he can't remember a lot as he was smoking a lot of dope at the time. If they allow him to light up in the dock, it may all come back to him, it always has worked for me .. :)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_we st/6360917.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1523143 ,00.html"

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