161767
story
surfingmarmot writes
"An HBO executive has figured out the problem with DRM acceptance — it's the name. HBO's chief technology officer Bob Zitter now wants to refer to the technology as Digital Consumer Enablement. Because, you see, DRM actually helps consumers by getting more content into their hands. The company already has HD movies on demand ready to go, but is delaying them because of ownership concerns. Says Zitter, 'Digital Consumer Enablement would more accurately describe technology that allows consumers "to use content in ways they haven't before," such as enjoying TV shows and movies on portable video players like iPods. "I don't want to use the term DRM any longer," said Zitter, who added that content-protection technology could enable various new applications for cable operators.'"
158923
story
MsManhattan writes
"A year after announcing its plans, Sun Microsystems has made almost all of the core technology in Java available as open-source software under the GNU general public license version 2 (GPLv2). However, some of the code remains 'encumbered'; that is, Sun doesn't have sufficient rights to release it under GPLv2, and the company is requesting the open-source community's help in resolving these issues. Rich Sands, community marketing manager for OpenJDK community at Sun, would not say what percentage of Java's 6.5 million lines of code are encumbered, but explained that it is largely Java 2D graphics technology, such as font and graphics rasterizing."
159027
submission
Anonymous UM Employee writes:
22000 records containing Social Security numbers have been stolen from a database at the University of Missouri. The records affected were of employees employed at any UM campus in 2004 and who had attended the University of Missouri — Columbia as students at any time before that. The compromised database was one used by IT services for tracking help desk quality.
See the Press Release or the IT Services QA page for more details.
This was the letter that I received:
Dear University of Missouri Employee:
A University of Missouri database was breached beginning May 3, compromising more than 22,000 names and social security numbers. Those affected include employees of any campus within the UM system during calendar year 2004 who were also current or former students at the Columbia campus.
Of those employees affected, nearly 9,000 are still employed by the University of Missouri. These employees will receive an individual e-mail outlining the specifics of the incident along with detailed instructions about how to proceed. Emails to affected employees have already been sent. If you did not already receive a separate email, you are not one of the employees affected and no further action is required.
The University of Missouri is committed to protecting the confidentiality of all employee information. A recent project has been in progress to remove social security numbers from university databases in an effort to avoid such breaches of confidentiality. As this extensive process continues, please be advised the university is doing everything possible to ensure the safety of its data.
For more information about the security breach, please access the Computer Security Web page that includes a question-and-answer section regarding the event at http://doit.missouri.edu/computersecurity.