Dante_J - Slashdot User

100,000 DSL modems may loose their 'Net connection from Jul 9, says Paul Vixie-> 1

Submitted by Dante_J on Thursday May 17, @12:20AM

Dante_J writes "Up to 100,000 DSL modems may loose access to DNS come July the 9th due to scripted web interface changes made to them by DNSChanger. This and other disturbing details were raised by respected Internet elder Paul Vixie during a presentation at the AusCERT 2012 conference."
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History Professor Teaches How to Falsify Wikipedia 0

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Wednesday May 16, @10:29PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes "Yoni Appelbaum reports in the Atlantic that as part of their coursework in a class that studies historical hoaxes, undergraduates at George Mason University successfully fooled Wikipedia's community of editors launching a Wikipedia page detailing the exploits of a fictitious 19th-century serial killer named Joe Scafe. The students, enrolled in T. Mills Kelly's course, Lying About the Past, used newspaper databases to identify four actual women murdered in New York City from 1895 to 1897, victims of broadly similar crimes and created Wikipedia articles for the victims, carefully following the rules of the site. But while a similar page created previously by Kelly's students went undetected for years, when students posted the story to Reddit, it took just twenty-six minutes for a redditor to call foul, noting the Wikipedia entries' recent vintage and others were quick to pile on, deconstructing the entire tale. Why did the hoaxes succeed in 2008 on Wikipedia and not in 2012 on Reddit? According to Appelbaum, the answer lies in the structure of the Internet's various communities. "Wikipedia has a weak community, but centralizes the exchange of information. It has a small number of extremely active editors, but participation is declining, and most users feel little ownership of the content. And although everyone views the same information, edits take place on a separate page, and discussions of reliability on another, insulating ordinary users from any doubts that might be expressed," writes Appelbaum. "Reddit, by contrast, builds its strong community around the centralized exchange of information. Discussion isn't a separate activity but the sine qua non of the site." If there's a simple lesson in all of this, it's that hoaxes tend to thrive in communities which exhibit high levels of trust. But on the Internet, where identities are malleable and uncertain, we all might be well advised to err on the side of skepticism (PDF).""

Any competent hosting companies for e-mail? 2

Submitted by cpm99352 on Wednesday December 22 2010, @01:45AM

cpm99352 writes "I've had my domain for 10 years, and the hosting company was doing a pretty good job — all we needed was POP3 e-mail for five accounts. However, as of the past six months, they've gone rapidly downhill. I tried looking at older slashdot submissions, but I see a ton of articles from 2003 and before, which doesn't do me a lot of good.

What I'm looking for is POP3 e-mail, ideally with a secure method of transmitting the userID/password.

Does such a thing exist in the United States? Googling hasn't proved useful, either, since it appears a ton of dubious outfits have gamed the Google search results.

I'm not looking for any discount fly-by-night outfit. I want secure reliable e-mail for a small business. Are there any out there?

For that matter, is there a website to get reasonably unbiased reviews of domain hosting companies?"

6 Worst Cyber-Security Threats for 2011-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 22 2010, @12:50AM

An anonymous reader writes "I've read a lot of predictions for 2011, but I think this report summarizes best the most serious security threats in 2011.

"Get prepared for continued exploitation by cyber-criminals, spammers and a new wave of amateur hackers in 2011. Here are the most serious security threats you should be aware of for the upcoming year...Beware of Mobile Android, Stuxnet, Sidejacking..."

You can't afford to miss this one, although I think it goes a little too fat--it give bad guys ideas they might not have thought of (yet)!"
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OpenBSD Chief: Gov Contractor Tried For Back Doors-> 0

Submitted by CWmike on Tuesday December 21 2010, @09:38PM

CWmike writes "The lead developer of the OpenBSD operating system says that he believes that a government contracting firm that contributed code to his project 'was probably contracted to write backdoors,' which would grant secret access to encrypted communications. Posting to an OpenBSD discussion list Tuesday, Theo de Raadt said that while he now believes that a company called Netsec may have been involved in backdoors, he doesn't think that any of this software made it into the OpenBSD code base. Last week, former Netsec CEO Gregory Perry e-mailed de Raadt privately to warn him that there might be old back door code in OpenBSD developed as a way for the FBI to monitor encrypted communications within the DOJ. OpenBSD's de Raadt went public with the e-mail, and while no one has come forward to back up Perry's allegations (quite the opposite — two people named in his e-mail have said the claims are false), parts of what Perry claimed do check out."
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Comment: Boeing vs Airbus, massively lacking objectivity (Score 1) 1

by Dante_J on Tuesday December 21 2010, @09:15PM (#34636660) Attached to: Boeing, Boeing ... Gone?

Over many occasions, especially during and since the development of the A380 and the ongoing development of the A350, I've witnessed time and time again, in forums and Social networking an almost bloody minded support of Boeing, demanding nothing less than the violent destruction of Airbus & EADS.

To me, this is an unhealthy and self destructive attitude to have towards a competitor, but is it just a natural fruit of "Welchism" ?

Rolls Royce have given Boeing fans something to crow about with the Trent 900 problems experienced, (being used on some A380's) and their sloppy response to it, but this is really just a distraction from the main game.

In global civil aviation over the past 30 years, there has been a great lack of design innovation. This stagnation is ultimately not good for airlines, passengers or aircraft manufactures. For the few that are left, it's a case of innovate or die.

Can Boeing refocus on being a genuine innovator again, and not just a market bully? It would benefit humanity most if at least both Boeing and Airbus continued to be competitive, and continued to be based in separate parts of the planet, under the influence of separate governments.

We all know how unhealthy monopolies can and have been.

Woz on Neutrality-> 0

Submitted by

MrShaggy

on Tuesday December 21 2010, @07:14PM

MrShaggy writes ""s. On the other hand, I'm a founder of the EFF and I care a lot about individuals and their own importance. Finally, the thought hit me that every time and in every way that the telecommunications careers have had power or control, we the people wind up getting screwed. Every audience that I speak this statement and phrase to bursts into applause.""
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NX compression technology to go closed source-> 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2010, @06:08PM

An anonymous reader writes "NoMachine has sneakily revealed it is closing its source of the NX compression technology with NX 4.0. ..... This release marks an important milestone in the history of the company. Version 4.0 of the software, in fact, will be only available under a closed source license.http://www.nomachine.com/news-read.php?idnews=331"
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Skill in Recognizing Faces Peaks after Age 30 0

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 21 2010, @04:07PM

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have made the surprising discovery that our ability to recognize and remember faces peaks at age 30 to 34, about a decade later than most of our other mental abilities.Researchers Laura T. Germine and Ken Nakayama of Harvard University and Bradley Duchaine of Dartmouth College will present their work in a forthcoming issue of the journal Cognition."

Firefox 4 Beta 8 Up 385

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday December 21 2010, @02:11PM
from the not-the-fish dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has released a new beta of Firefox 4 this morning. Originally intended as a quick update for the feature-complete Beta 7 release, the new Beta includes 1415 bugfixes, a fine-tuned add-ons manager, improved WebGL support as well as URL bar enhancements."