Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror

Comment: Implementations suck too (Score 1) 55

by Zocalo (#40133779) Attached to: UK "No Tracking Law" Now In Effect
Where sites have actually implemented this new directive, the implementations often suck just as much as the law, which is not particularly surprising given how poorly it's worded. If you have cookies disabled through your default browser policies the end result on many sites where is a permanantly visible prompt to "Click here to read and accept our cookie policy". Yep, that's right. You have to enable cookies to let them set a cookie that says they will not use cookies to track you.

I'm fairly sure that some of these sites realise that you could set a cookie, immediately try to read it back and if that fails assume cookies are blocked skipping the display of the prompt, and either way you remove the cookie. But no, this law is so poorly written it's not totally clear whether even this would be a breach of the legislation or not and clarification has still not been provided, so as usual for the EU the intention might be good, but the implementation leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. In this case, I can see a number of people are going to end up re-enabling cookies just to get rid of the prompts and end up getting tracked by all those sites who don't implement the law because they are outside the EU's jurisdiction and/or just don't care - completely the opposite of the desired effect.
Privacy

Britians "No Tracking Law" Now In Effect->

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes "The British Gov might have more cameras up on street corners than just about anywhere else in the world, but it seems that the Gov doesn't want anyone else stepping on the privacy of their folks. In what the media have dubbed the "Cookie Law" all operators of websites in Britain must notify users of the tracking that the website does. This doesn't only cover cookies, but all forms of tracking and analytics performed on visitors. While there are potential fines up up to 500,000 pounds (Over US$750,000) for websites not following these new rules, the BBC announced that very few websites are ready, even most of its own sites aren't up to speed — and amusingly even the governments own websites aren't ready."
Link to Original Source
Japan

Japan readies robot for work at crippled nuclear reactor->

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes "A Japanese robotics lab has developed a new emergency response prototype that will soon be put to work at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northern Japan. The robot, called "Rosemary," is about the size of a lawn mower and has four extended treaded feet that swivel up and down to help it climb over obstacles."
Link to Original Source
China

China Has Backdoor On US Military Chip-> 8

Submitted by jjp9999
jjp9999 writes "Based on claims that silicon chips could be infected, security researcher Sergei Skorobogatov claims he and his team developed chip scanning software to put this to the test. They got their hands on a US military chip "that is highly secure with sophisticated encryption standards," that also happens to be manufactured in China. What they found was the chip has a backdoor on it that can disable the chip or reopen it at will. "This particular chip is prevalent in many systems from weapons, nuclear power plants to public transport. In other words, this backdoor access could be turned into an advanced Stuxnet weapon to attack potentially millions of systems. The scale and range of possible attacks has huge implications for National Security and public infrastructure," Skorobogatov writes on his blog."
Link to Original Source

Ask Slashdot: Computer Science Degree or Experience?

Submitted by Taka25
Taka25 writes "Just some background first, I am 25 years old currently making $60k/yr as a .NET Software Developer. My actual title is "Senior .NET Software Engineer." I have been doing this job for the last 3 years, after moving up from a high level support position which required basic programming skills after 2 years. My current job security situation is great, and the company is currently 2 years into a 6 year contract, so I should be OK for 4 more years minimum.

I have no degree and have completed no college at all, I got into this company (which requires a degree) by a family friend in the field alone. I taught myself VB6 at the age of 13, and eventually taught myself C, C++, C#, Java, Python and Perl, along with related skill sets like SQL.

Now finally my question, how beneficial do you believe it would be to at least take night classes and get a computer science degree while taking on the associated debt? My only real concern is currently my ability to find another job in the same field due to lack of degree, not lack of skill. If I stick this out for another 2 years minimum (and I plan to, as I am happy in this job.) How much better will a degree make my resume look to an employer?

Thanks!"
Patents

Patent Troll now armed with thousands of Nortel patents->

Submitted by dgharmon
dgharmon writes "You may recall last summer that Apple, Microsoft, EMC, RIM, Ericsson and Sony all teamed up to buy Nortel's patents for $4.5 billion. They beat out a team of Google and Intel who bid a bit less. While there was some antitrust scrutiny over the deal, it was dropped and the purchase went through. Apparently, the new owners picked off a bunch of patents to transfer to themselves... and then all (minus EMC, who, one hopes, was horrified by the plans) decided to support a massive new patent troll armed with the remaining 4,000 patents. The company is called Rockstar Consortium, and it's run by the folks who used to run Nortel's patent licensing program anyway — but now employs people whose job it is to just find other companies to threaten:"
Link to Original Source

Shouryya Ray solves 300-year-old mathematical riddle posed by Isaac Newton-> 1

Submitted by
johnsnails
johnsnails writes "A GERMAN 16-year-old has become the first person to solve a mathematical problem posed by Sir Isaac Newton more than 300 years ago.
Shouryya Ray worked out how to calculate exactly the path of a projectile under gravity and subject to air resistance, The (London) Sunday Times reported.
The Indian-born teen said he solved the problem that had stumped mathematicians for centuries while working on a school project.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/german-teen-shouryya-ray-solves-300-year-old-mathematical-riddle-posed-by-sir-isaac-newton/story-e6frfro0-1226368490157#ixzz1w3LI5N1w"
Link to Original Source

The appreciation of the average visual graphisticator alone is worth the whole suaveness and decadence which abounds!!