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The Courts

Hacker Admits To Scientology DDoS Attack 275

Posted by Soulskill from the may-xenu-protect-you dept.
lbwbl writes with news that a New Jersey man will plead guilty to one felony count of 'unauthorized impairment of a protected computer' for his distributed denial of service attacks on Scientology websites as part of 'Anonymous' earlier this year. From Wired: "He faces a likely sentence of 12 to 18 months in prison based on stipulations in his plea agreement, which also obliges him to pay $37,500 in restitution. ... Friday's case, in US District Court in Los Angeles, marks the first prosecution of an Anonymous member for a series of attacks against the Church of Scientology that began in mid-January. The secretive religious group strayed into Anonymous' sights after trying to suppress the publication of a creepy Tom Cruise video produced for Scientology members."
Music

Submission + - Radiohead's In Rainbows - Is The Album Dead? (theseminal.com) 1

Submitted by
Snocrash23
Snocrash23 writes: "Last week, Radiohead released their latest album, In Rainbows, for free, asking fans to pay whatever they liked for the full length downloadable work. A week later, the "sales" numbers for In Rainbows are starting to leak. By my calculations, Radiohead made out with a ton of money."
Music

Submission + - Slashdot Reverses Facts about Radiohead 1

Submitted by Apro+im
Apro+im writes: The popular news aggregation website, Slashdot today reported that the new Radiohead album, In Rainbows was pirated more than it was procured via legitimate means, setting off a flurry of speculation on their online discussion board as to the implications of this "fact". Strangely overlooked in much of the discussion, however, was the fact that the article they linked contained the exact opposite information, stating:

"The file was downloaded about 100,000 more times each day — adding up to more than 500,000 total illegal downloads. That's less than the 1.2 million legitimate online sales of the album reported by the British Web site Gigwise.com"
Questions about what this implies about Slashdot's editorial practices and readership remain unanswered.
Music

Submission + - Apple slashes iTunes' DRM-free prices (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dr. phdream
dr. phdream writes: Crazy Stevie is at it again as Apple slashed prices on DRM-less music...

From the article:

All tunes stripped of digital rights management (DRM) limitations have been reduced from $1.29 to $.99, said Apple. The iTunes catalog of DRM-free music has also been expanded and now numbers more than 2 million tracks.
Communications

Submission + - AT&T To Drop Early Termination Fees (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AT&T on Tuesday announced new policies that apply to customers changing calling plans or exiting contracts early. Starting next month, customers who change a wireless calling plan will no longer be required to extend their current contact with AT&T or sign a new contract. Customers who terminate a contact early will no longer have to pay a flat early termination fee. The fee will be lowered during the term of the contact. The early termination policy, however, will go into effect early next year and will apply to new and renewing customers who sign a one or a two-year contract.

Comment Success? (Score 1) 1

by adamlazz (#21017741) Attached to: Stephen Colbert officially announces
I think it would be interesting to make a statement about how he would define a success. In my humble opinion, I think he knows what he is doing. But for some strange reason, I don't think he has enough of the country behind him to pull out as the winner. I wonder what kind of impact he wishes to make, or if he actually thinks he can win this thing.
Music

Name-Your-Cost Radiohead Album Pirated More Than Purchased 582

Posted by Zonk from the perhaps-you-don't-understand-the-concept-of-free dept.
phantomfive writes "Forbes is reporting that despite Radiohead giving their latest album away 'for free', more copies of the album were pirated than downloaded from their site. Commentators offered up the opinion that this was probably more out of habit than malice. People download from regular BitTorrent sources, and may not have fully understood the band's very new approach to the subject. Regardless, Readiohead's efforts are having some measurable effect, as noted by the chairman of EMI: 'The industry, rather than embracing digitalization and the opportunities it brings for promotion of product and distribution through multiple channels, has stuck its head in the sand. Radiohead's actions are a wake-up call which we should all welcome and respond to with creativity and energy.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Infrequent Anonymous Cowards Reliable on Wikipedia

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Researchers at Dartmouth University have recently discovered that infrequent anonymous contributors, so called "Good Samaritans," are as reliable as registered users who update constantly and have a reputation to maintain.

By subdividing their analysis by registered versus anonymous contributors, the researchers found that among those who contribute often, registered users are more reliable. And they discovered that among those who contribute only a little, the anonymous users are more reliable. The researchers were most surprised to find that the reliability of Good Samaritans' contributions were at least as high as that of the more reputable registered users' contributions. "This finding was both novel and unexpected," says Denise Anthony, associate professor of sociology. "In traditional laboratory studies of collective goods, we don't include Good Samaritans, those people who just happen to pass by and contribute, because those carefully designed studies don't allow for outside actors. It took a real-life situation for us to recognize and appreciate the contributions of Good Samaritans to web content."
A graph from page 31 of the group's original paper (pdf file) shows that the quality of contributions of anonymous users goes down as the number of edits increases while quality goes up with the number of edits for registered users."
Google

Submission + - Google to Update Urchin (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by
mytrip
mytrip writes: "Slashdot recently ran a story about Google's failure to update Urchin(http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/10/1256244)

Google Inc. is set to roll out new features to its Google Analytics service and beta of a new version of the Web analytics server software from its acquisition of Urchin Software two-and-a-half years ago.

Google Tuesday is set to announce that site search and event tracking features will be added to its Google Analytics software within the next few weeks.

The site search tool is designed to apply Google-like features to searches of internal Web sites, said Brett Crosby, senior manager of Google Analytics. The search tool will allow Web site operators to identify keywords, categories, products and trends across time and user segments to help companies measure the effectiveness of the site and marketing efforts, he added.

The new event tracking feature will help companies more accurately measure how visitors are using interactive Web site elements like Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), JavaScript, Flash movies, page gadgets and other multimedia tools, Crosby added."
Security

Man Hacks 911 System, Sends SWAT on Bogus Raid 754

Posted by Zonk from the word-dumb-doesn't-cover-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Orange County Register reports that a 19 year old from Washington state broke into the Orange County California 911 emergency system. He randomly selected the name and address of a Lake Forest, California couple and electronically transferred false information into the 911 system. The Orange County California Sheriff's Department's Special Weapons and Tactics Team was immediately sent to the home of a couple with two sleeping toddlers. The SWAT team handcuffed the husband and wife before deciding it was a prank. Says the article, 'Other law enforcement agencies have seen similar breaches into their 911 systems as part of a trend picked up by computer hackers in the nation called "SWATting"'"
Announcements

Submission + - Stephen Colbert officially announces (luc.edu) 1

Submitted by gbobeck
gbobeck writes: On Tuesday, October 16, Stephen Colbert officially declared he would run for President of the United States.

"After nearly 15 minutes of soul-searching, I have heard the call... I shall seek the office of the President of the United States"
Colbert hasn't announced if he will be running as a Democrat, Republican, both, or neither. Nor has he announced who his running mate will be, although he did toss out three possibilities: "Colbert-Huckabee, Colbert-Putin or Colbert-Colbert" He will, however, be running as a favorite son in the South Carolina primary.
Security

Submission + - Student Who Uncovers Breach Escapes Expulsion (pcworld.com)

Submitted by
mikesd81
mikesd81 writes: "PC world reports that a student at Western Oregon University who accidentally discovered a file containing personal data on a publicly accessible university server and then handed that data over to the student newspaper has narrowly escaped being expelled for his actions.

Brian Loving, stumbled upon a file containing the names, Social Security numbers and grade point averages of between 50 to 100 students on a publicly accessible university server in June. Loving downloaded a copy of what he discovered and handed it over to the Western Oregon Journal, the campus newspaper. Though the paper's final publication date for the academic year had already passed, it decided to publish a four-page special report with an article describing Loving's discovery. No names of any of the students were published in the article.

Two months into the investigation, Loving — who is now a staffer with the newspaper — was found to have broken a university computer use policy that prohibits unauthorized people from accessing confidential files that may have been inadvertently placed in a publicly accessible location."

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