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Security

Preventing the spread of USB Malware->

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes "From milw0rm, a site best known as a source of exploits, comes a paper explaining a simple way to protect a FAT32 memory stick from infection by malicious software, which is one of the main methods used by the Conficker worm to spread. A couple of minutes with a hex editor can now prevent you passing an infection onto every computer you use your memory stick in."
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Music

Is it time to kill the RIAA? Artists think so.->

Submitted by
thefickler
thefickler writes "On the surface, record labels exist to distribute the music of our favorite artists, but if you look much deeper, their main purpose is to make money, lots of money. There was a time when the label was needed, but today, artists can record and distribute their content much more easily thanks to the Internet on the home computer. Now artists are beginning to agree, in order for the artist and music to prosper, we must kill the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)."
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Security

Cyber Jihad

Submitted by
adarklite
adarklite writes "DEBKAfile(http://www.debka.org) has run a story saying that Al Qaeda and other extremist groups are calling for a Cyber Jihad to begin on Nov. 11th. While this could be the same posturing that a lot of the groups are famous for it could still be a major threat.
Since DEBKAfile was spotty on a lot of the specifics I researched this a little more and found out that there is a program called "Electronic Jihad 2.0" which is extremely worrisome. Basically its a easily configurable program that will start a denial of service attack on any server hosting a website that you could possibly want. All you have to do is download the program, click on the website you want to attack and the 'strength' you want for the attack. And while they say that they are only going to attack anti-islamic and apostate islamic sites they may have a different idea than most of us about what anti-islamic sites are. Anything supporting feminism, christianity, buddhism, and other religious sites as well as pornographic websites could be within their scope of "anti-islamic". Either way this could be either extremely worrisome or Nov 11th could come by and nothing could be happen.

Sources:
http://debka.org/headline.php?hid=4723
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=200001943
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,139151-pg,1/article.html"
Music

Study Says P2P Downloaders Buy More Music 158

Posted by Zonk
from the not-all-that-kooky dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist posts to his site about a study commissioned by the Canadian government intended to look into the buying habits of music fans. What the study found is that 'there is a positive correlation between peer-to-peer downloading and CD purchasing.' The report is entitled The Impact of Music Downloads and P2P File-Sharing on the Purchase of Music: A Study For Industry Canada, and it was 'conducted collaboratively by two professors from the University of London, Industry Canada, and Decima Research, who surveyed over 2,000 Canadians on their music downloading and purchasing habits. The authors believe this is the first ever empirical study to employ representative microeconomic data.'"
Education

Student Attacked After Dropping Cake-> 17

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes ""School security guards in Palmdale, CA have been caught on camera assaulting a 16-year-old girl and breaking her arm after she spilled some cake during lunch and left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning it up. The girl, Pleajhai Mervin, told Fox News LA that she was bumped while queuing for lunch and dropped the cake. After being ordered to clean it up and then re-clean the spot three times, she attempted to leave the area out of embarrassment but was jumped on by security who forced her onto a table, breaking her wrist in the process.""
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Microsoft

Microsoft threatens Halo 3 gamers with LIVE ban-> 7

Submitted by
JamesO
JamesO writes "When contacted by Pro-G a Microsoft rep confirmed rumours that gamers who play Halo 3 early will have their LIVE accounts banned. Simply not connecting to the internet doesn't appear to be a solution either. The rep also confirmed that Microsoft is able to ban accounts based on information collected by the console which shows when the game was played. This news is sure to come as a shock to some gamers who have already started playing the final chapter in the blockbuster Halo trilogy.

This appears to suggest that games who play Halo 3 before the official street date will only avoid a ban if they never access Xbox LIVE. Microsoft is preparing an official statement on the Halo 3 banning scandal. We'll give you more on this breaking news story as we get it."
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