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Transportation

Schneier, Journalist Poke Holes In TSA Policies 296

Fallen Andy points out an article in The Atlantic written by Jeffrey Goldberg. He and Bruce Schneier teamed up to put the TSA's policies to the test at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. They found plenty of evidence for security theater, and rather less for actual security. Quoting: "'The whole system is designed to catch stupid terrorists,' Schneier told me. ... As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver's license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schneier had made for me. ... 'All right, you can go,' [an airport security supervisor] said, pointing me to the X-ray line. 'But let this be a lesson for you.'"
Image

"Stayin Alive" Helps You Stay Alive 31

In a small study conducted at the University of Illinois medical school, doctors and students maintained close to the ideal number of chest compressions doing CPR while listening to the Bee Gees hit, "Stayin' Alive." At 103 beats per minute, the old disco song has almost the perfect rhythm to help keep accurate time while doing chest compressions. The study showed the song helped people who already know how to do CPR, and the results were promising enough to warrant larger, more definitive studies with real patients or untrained people. I wonder what intrinsic power is contained in "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?"
Government

EFF Sues To Overturn Telecom Immunity 369

Mike writes "The title says it all — The EFF is suing to have the unconstitutional telecom immunity overturned. 'In a brief filed in the US District Court [PDF] in San Francisco, the EFF argues that the flawed FISA Amendments Act (FAA) violates the federal government's separation of powers as established in the Constitution and robs innocent telecom customers of their rights without due process of law. [...] "We have overwhelming record evidence that the domestic spying program is operating far outside the bounds of the law," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Intelligence agencies, telecoms, and the Administration want to sweep this case under the rug, but the Constitution won't permit it."'"
Mozilla

Mobile Firefox Alpha 1 Released 148

An anonymous reader writes "Today Mozilla released development builds of its next mobile browser, Fennec 1.0 Alpha 1. 'The last eight milestones were building up to getting a stable browser with an easy to use interface. We really want to get Fennec in front of as many people as possible and get feedback.' To that end, Fennec has been made available for the desktop on Windows, Mac and Linux."
Education

Submission + - Wikimedia COO a felon (physorg.com) 1

ArrayIndexOutOfBound writes: "physorg.com has an article about Carolyn Doran, COO of Wikimedia. "Before she left [Wikimedia] in July, Carolyn Bothwell Doran, 45, had moved up from a part-time bookkeeper for the Wikimedia Foundation and spent six months as chief operating officer, responsible for personnel and financial management. At the time, she was on probation for a 2004 hit-and-run accident in Virginia that had landed her seven months in prison. Doran had multiple drunken-driving convictions, and records show earlier run-ins for theft, writing bad checks and wounding her boyfriend with a gunshot to the chest.""
Education

Submission + - Canadian copyright "reform" denounced

wakim1618 writes: In Canada, ctv news (the country's largest broadcaster) reports that libraries urge balance in pending copyright reforms". In particular the Canadian Library Association has issued a press release arguing that these amendments make the same mistakes as the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act:

"American law makes no differentiation in penalty between a counterfeiter circumventing technical protection measures for illegal profit and an individual circumventing technical protection measures to make a single copy... Our challenge is with the Hollywood lobbyists and the recording industry who are trying to take rights away from ordinary Canadians"
The Media

Submission + - Computerworld eats babies. (computerworld.com) 1

Lerc writes: Computerworld has posted a response to people who called them on their use of the term Bricked in a recent article. They are standing beside their use of the term. It seems they support the idea of misleading headlines in order to gain reader attention arguing that the body of the article still provides accurate information. "The facts in the article are clear and straightforward, and if the headline gets the attention of one user who *won't* walk up to you Wednesday morning with a cheesed laptop, I think you'll agree the verbal slap upside the head is worth it."

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Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?

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