Bad PC Sales Staff Exposed 650

Posted by samzenpus on Monday September 28, 2009 @01:33PM from the barely-trying dept.

Barence writes "An undercover investigation has revealed how Dell's online sales staff take liberties with the truth when trying to sell customers new PCs. One member of staff told an undercover reporter that he would need a PC with a good graphics card to download digital photos. Another, who was more incompetent than devious, was asked how many photos could be stored on a 250GB hard disk. 'Its[sic] on average 2 MB then 1024 MB * 2,' came the bewildering reply. Meanwhile, a sales assistant at supermarket Tesco told the reporter that netbooks got their name because 'a Japanese man on a plane fell asleep with a laptop on his thighs and was horribly burned, so the industry has dropped the name laptop.'"

Microsoft Says Google Chrome Frame Makes IE Less Secure 459

Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday September 24, 2009 @08:59AM from the less-secure-than-what-exactly dept.

Mark writes "The release of Google Chrome Frame, a new open source plugin that injects Chrome's renderer and JavaScript engine into Microsoft's browser, earlier this week had many web developers happily dancing long through the night. Finally, someone had found a way to get Internet Explorer users up to speed on the Web. Microsoft, on the other hand, is warning IE users that it does not recommend installing the plugin. What does the company have against the plugin? It makes Internet Explorer less secure. 'With Internet Explorer 8, we made significant advancements and updates to make the browser safer for our customers,' a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. 'Given the security issues with plugins in general and Google Chrome in particular, Google Chrome Frame running as a plugin has doubled the attack area for malware and malicious scripts. This is not a risk we would recommend our friends and families take.'"

In the UK, a Plan To Criminalize Illegal Downloaders 382

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 18, 2009 @05:26AM from the naughty-naughty dept.

krou writes "It looks like the launch of the UK Pirate Party came not a moment too soon. The Independent reports that Business Secretary Lord Mandelson is going to take a hard-line stance to preserve copyright after intense lobbying by the music and film industry. 'Under the proposed laws, Ofcom, the industry regulator, would be given powers to require Internet service providers to collect information on those who downloaded pirate material. The data would be anonymous, but serious repeat infringers would be tracked down through their computer ID numbers.' Prospective punishments included restricting internet access, either slowing down an offender's broadband or disconnecting them altogether, and fines up to £50,000. The Pirate Party came out against the scheme, calling it a gross invasion of civil liberties, while Tom Watson, the former minister for digital engagement, spoke out against the move, saying that the government should stop trying criminalize downloaders just so as to 'restore 20th-century incumbents to their position of power,' but should instead be 'coming up with interventions that will nurture 21st-century creative talent.'"

Why the UK Needs the Pirate Party 363

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday August 13, 2009 @03:42AM from the representative-piracy dept.

Barence writes "The UK Pirate Party wants to reform copyright and patent laws, abolish the surveillance state and increase our freedom of speech, and it's just been recognized as a political party. In this interview with PC Pro, UK Pirate Party leader Andrew Robinson explains how he's planning to shake up the political landscape. 'What we really want to do is raise awareness, so that the other parties say "bloody hell, they've got seven million votes this time out," or one million votes, or enough votes to make them care and seriously think about these issues.'"

Printable Batteries Should Arrive Next Year 92

Posted by timothy on Sunday August 09, 2009 @01:19AM from the return-to-the-goodness-of-aa dept.

FullBandwidth writes "Paper-thin batteries that can be printed onto greeting cards or other flexible substrates have been demonstrated at Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems in Germany. The batteries have a relatively short life span, as the anode and cathode materials dissipate over time. However, they contain no hazardous materials."

Entropy Problems For Linux In the Cloud 179

Posted by kdawson on Monday August 03, 2009 @08:29PM from the mehr-Zufälligkeit dept.

CalTrumpet writes "Our research group recently spoke at Black Hat USA on the topic of cloud computing security. One of the interesting outcomes of our research was the discovery that the combination of virtualization technologies and public system images results in a problem for random number generation on guest operating systems. This is especially true for Linux, since its PRNG uses only a small set of entropy-gathering events, and virtual Linux images often generate SSH host keys within seconds of their initial boot. The slides are available; the PRNG vulnerability material begins at slide 63."

Comment Tell Mr Brown what you think on his own website (Score 1) 278

by Kalvis on Friday July 31, 2009 @12:34PM (#28897689) Attached to: British Hacker Loses Review of Asperger's Defense

You can vote for or against here: http://slashdot.org/submission/1044077/We-petition-the-Prime-Minister-to-resign?art_pos=1

Comment An email from 10 Downing Street (Score 1) 278

by Kalvis on Friday July 31, 2009 @10:18AM (#28895773) Attached to: British Hacker Loses Review of Asperger's Defense

--- http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go --- the petition http://kalvis.com?PleaseGo.pdf --- the poster ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: 10 Downing Street Date: 2009/7/31 Subject: Your petition has been rejected To: petition@kalvis.com Hi, I'm sorry to inform you that your petition has been rejected. Your petition was classed as being in the following categories: * Issues for which an e-petition is not the appropriate channel Further information: We cannot accept petitions which involve individual legal cases. Individual legal cases are a matter for direct communication with the Home Office. If you wish to edit and resubmit your petition, please follow the following link: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ex-treaty/BOdqUVCfKXpvB6NOBuAUBWV You have four weeks in which to do this, after which your petition will appear in the list of rejected petitions. Your petition reads: We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to: 'end our extradition treaty with the USA.' After the abuse of the extradition treaty in the Gary McKinnon case, we petition the Prime Minister to end the extradition treaty with the USA. -- the ePetitions team

Passenger Avoids Delay By Fixing Plane Himself 178

Posted by samzenpus on Monday July 06, 2009 @01:11PM from the flying-the-diy-skies dept.

It would be a shame if an engineer on a recent Thomas Cook Airlines flight doesn't get a complimentary first class upgrade every time he flies. The engineer was on flight TCX9641 when it was announced that the trip would be delayed eight hours, while a mechanic was flown in to fix a problem. Luckily for the other passengers, the engineer happened to work for Thomsonfly Airlines, which has a reciprocal maintenance agreement with Thomas Cook. After about 35 minutes the man fixed the problem and the flight was on its way. A spokeswoman for Thomas Cook said, "When they announced there was a technical problem he came forward and said who he was. We checked his licence and verified he was who he said he was, and he was able to fix the problem to avoid the delay. We are very grateful that he was on the flight that day."

Emigrating To a Freer Country? 1359

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday June 27, 2009 @12:09AM from the all-my-recommendations-require-time-machines dept.

puroresu writes "I currently reside in the UK. In recent years I've seen privacy, free expression and civil liberties steadily eroded, and I can't see anything changing for the better any time soon. With people being banned from the UK for expressing (admittedly reprehensible) opinions, the continuing efforts to implement mandatory ID cards and the prospect of a Conservative government in the near future, I'm seriously considering emigrating to a less restrictive country. Which countries would you recommend in terms of freedom and privacy? Distance is not an issue, though a reasonable level of stability and provision of public services would be a bonus."

Submission + - The Truth Behind the Death of Linux on the Netbook (groklaw.net)

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Friday June 19, 2009 @08:36PM

eldavojohn writes: "Groklaw brings us news of Microsoft holding the smoking gun in regards to the death of Linux on netbooks. You see, the question of Linux on netbooks in Taiwan was put forth to the Taiwan Trade Authority director who replied, 'In our association we operate as a consortium, like the open source consortium. They want to promote open source and Linux. But if you begin from the PC you are afraid of Microsoft. They try to go to the smart phone or PDA to start again.' It's simple, fear will keep them in line. PJ points out 'So next time you hear Microsoft bragging that people *prefer* their software to Linux on netbooks, you'll know better. If they really believed that, they'd let the market speak, on a level playing field. If I say my horse is faster than yours, and you says yours is faster, and we let our horses race around the track, that establishes the point. But if you shoot my horse, that leaves questions in the air. Is your horse *really* faster? If so, why shoot my horse?'"

How Common Is Scientific Misconduct? 253

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday May 30, 2009 @11:28AM from the don't-steal-plutonium-from-terrorists dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The image of scientists as objective seekers of truth is periodically jeopardized by the discovery of a major scientific fraud. Recent scandals like Hwang Woo-Suk's fake stem-cell lines or Jan Hendrik Schön's duplicated graphs showed how easy it can be for a scientist to publish fabricated data in the most prestigious journals. Daniele Fanelli has an interesting paper on PLoS ONE where she performs a meta-analysis synthesizing previous surveys to determine the frequency with which scientists fabricate and falsify data, or commit other forms of scientific misconduct. A pooled, weighted average of 1.97% of scientists admitted to having fabricated, falsified or modified data or results at least once — a serious form of misconduct by any standard — and up to 33.7% admitted other questionable research practices. In surveys asking about the behavior of colleagues, admission rates were 14.12% for falsification, and up to 72% for other questionable research practices. Misconduct was reported more frequently by medical/pharmacological researchers than others. 'Considering that these surveys ask sensitive questions and have other limitations, it appears likely that this is a conservative estimate of the true prevalence of scientific misconduct,' writes Fanelli. 'It is likely that, if on average 2% of scientists admit to have falsified research at least once and up to 34% admit other questionable research practices, the actual frequencies of misconduct could be higher than this.'"

Mozilla Preparing To Scrap Tabbed Browsing? 554

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday May 18, 2009 @08:36AM from the if-it-ain't-broke-fix-it dept.

Barence writes "Mozilla Labs has launched a design competition that aims to find an alternative to tabbed browsing. 'Tabs worked well on slow machines on a thin internet, where ten browser sessions were "many browser sessions,"' Mozilla claims on its Design Challenge website. 'Today, 20+ parallel sessions are quite common; the browser is more of an operating system than a data display application; we use it to manage the web as a shared hard drive. However, if you have more than seven or eight tabs open they become pretty much useless.' Aza Raskin, the head of user experience at Mozilla Labs, has already blogged on the possibility of moving tabs down the side of the browser, with tabs grouped by the type of activity involved (i.e. applications, work spaces)."

Twitter Considered Harmful To Swine-Flu Panic 383

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday April 28, 2009 @02:36AM from the you-have-the-flu-swine dept.

judgecorp writes "Twitter is being criticized for spreading panic about swine flu. This is not just knee-jerk Luddism 2.0: it's argued that Twitter's structure encourages ill-informed repetition, with little room for context, while older Web media use their power for good — for instance Google's Flu Trends page (which we discussed last winter), and the introduction of a Google swine flu map." On a related note, reader NewtonsLaw suggests that it might be a good idea, epidemiologically speaking, to catch the flu now vs. later.

UK Government To Monitor All Internet Use 446

Posted by CmdrTaco on Monday April 27, 2009 @11:38AM from the foil-hats-aren't-going-to-cut-it dept.

nk497 writes "The UK government has further detailed plans to track all communications — mobile phone calls, text messages, email and browser sessions — in the fight against terrorism, pedophiles and organized crime. The government said it's not looking to see what you're saying, just to whom and when and how. Contrary to previous plans to keep it all in a massive database, it will now let ISPs and telecoms firms store the data themselves, and access it when it feels it needs it." And to clarify this, Barence writes "The UK Government has dropped plans to create a massive database of all internet communications, following stern criticism from privacy advocates. Instead the Government wants ISPs and mobile phone companies to retain details of mobile phone calls, emails and internet sites visited. As with the original scheme, the actual content of the phone calls and messages won't be recorded, just the dates, duration and location/IP address of messages sent. The security services would then have to apply to the ISP or telecoms company to have the data released. The new proposals would also require ISPs to retain details of communications that originated in other countries but passed over the UK's network, such as instant messages."