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Does an IT firm's internal IM usage affect your op

Submitted by c0l0
c0l0 writes "It's a seemingly recent fad in IT for everything to be migrated into the cloud. There is, however, one particular branch of technology where a hosted approach used to be the norm in the earlier days of the Internet, and where rock-solid do-it-yourself solutions have only emerged and spread out relatively recently: Instant Messaging. Many companies to this date are using the likes of Skype and ICQ for handling that kind of communication though, with all the strings attached to it: potential eavesdropping by those services' providers or even automatic transfer of copyright of any transported data to the IM networks' operators, amongst others.

I'd like to know how getting wind of an IT firm handling large chunks of its internal communication over such an IM network affects your perception of that firm — would you, as a potential customer, think it's an acceptable practise for the occasional excerpt of your data to be transported over any such network and applaud that firm for their cleverness in outsourcing the management of their IM infrastructure, or would you rather not deal with that firm on grounds mentioned above?"

Autonomous Wave Gliders begin their Pacific crossi->

Submitted by cylonlover
cylonlover writes "Four small autonomous aquatic robots have embarked on a 60,000-kilometer (37,000-mile) journey across the Pacific ocean. The Wave Gliders, built by California-based Liquid Robotics, left San Francisco last Thursday. All four will travel together to Hawaii, at which point they will split into two pairs — one of those pairs will proceed to Australia, with the other heading for Japan. Called PacX (for "Pacific Crossing"), the project will constitute the longest voyage ever completed by an unmanned ocean vessel."
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Comment: One problem with Python's standard library... (Score 3, Informative) 33

by c0l0 (#37146606) Attached to: Book Review: The Python Standard Library By Example

... is that it's there (and I think it's actually great and indeed vast), but it's of seemingly little use in "production" code. The aforementioned SocketServer, for instance - try asking in #python on freenode how to do this-and-that with it. Answer: ditch it, noone uses it because it's crap, use twisted instead. It seems like a solid chunk of the provided functionality is being dragged along for (mostly) historical reasons, as you're supposed to use some third-party library that doesn't come bundled with the Python runtime by default anyway if you want to do actual stuff with the language that's ready for "the real world".

I still like programming in Python a lot though, and I do make extensive use of the "batteries" it includes. Will probably pick up the book; thanks for reviewing!

Comment: Re:LGPL Rules! (Score 1) 215

by c0l0 (#36098478) Attached to: With regard to software licensing ...

The opposite of "free" (as in the GPL's definition of free) is not "commercial", but "proprietary". You can very well ask your customers for a licensing fee if you distribute your GPL'd program to them. If your product and especially the support and services around that dump of code and binaries are good enough, they'll probably give you what you ask for anyway.

Comment: That's only part of the story. (Score 0) 901

by c0l0 (#35277112) Attached to: German Foreign Office Going Back To Windows

There were two studies conducted by McKinsey, that both led to the result that an Open Source/Free Software desktop was feasible and a strategy that is saving the AA costs, but the powers that now be seem to disregard any evidence that suggests sticking to the solution currently in place there, because someone from MS seems to be sending in black suitcases... it's disgusting.

On top of that, they're considering switching to Windows XP now, and to a Windows 7 and Office 2010 setup later on! Migrating platforms twice within two or three years (XP support ends in 2014, mind you). This is just utterly insane.

Censorship

SPAM: Calyx versus the FBI

Submitted by Eric Blair
Eric Blair writes "We've noted, repeatedly, that the feds have been caught abusing National Security Letters (NSLs) to try to get information they had no legal right to get. Because these NSLs usually contained an immediate gag order and no judicial review, basically the FBI could request whatever it wanted, and no one would review it and people couldn't speak out against it. So it was great to hear, about three years ago, that one ISP owner recipient of such an NSL was anonymously fighting back, specifically about the required gag order. We were disappointed last year, when a judge refused to drop the gag order, even if the actual request had been dropped by the feds."
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Privacy

India may switch off 3G on security concerns->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "The home ministry has told the Department of Telecommunications to put 3G expansion plans on hold till tapping equipment is in place. Currently, the govt has capability of tapping into normal 2G cell phone conversations, but there does not exist any equipment with the govt. departments which allow tapping of video or high Bandwidth data calls between 3G handsets."
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