Forgot your password?

Close
typodupeerror

Comment: Re:that will tieup the courts and jury trials (Score 2) 409

by mtempsch (#38687990) Attached to: US Government Seeks Extradition of UK Student For File-Sharing

If the British courts found nothing to press charges then why is the US wasting money pursuing this, and we all know it's at the behest of the MPAA, RIAA or whomever.

Guess they coyldn't pressure the UK government, and through them the British courts, like the did the Swedes. Not long before some Swedish politicos visited Washington, the DA that later brought the case agains TPB said (in effect) "Nothing we can do about TPB given the current laws" - guess he saw the light.

What's holding back encryption?

Submitted by
nine-times
nine-times writes "After many years in IT, I've been surprised to notice how much of my traffic is still unencrypted. A lot of businesses that I interact with (both business and personal) are still using unencrypted FTP, and very few people use any kind of encryption for email. Most websites are still using unencrypted HTTP. DNSSEC seems to be picking up some steam, but still doesn't seem to be widely used. I would have thought there would be a concerted effort to move toward encryption for the sake of security, but it doesn't seem to be happening.

I wanted to ask the Slashdot community, what do you think the hold up is? Are the existing protocols somehow not good enough? Are the protocols fine, but not supported well enough in software? Is it too complicated to manage the various encryption protocols and keys? Is it ignorance or apathy on the part of the IT community, and that we've failed to demand it from our vendors?

What challenges have you faced in trying to increase your use of encryption, and what do you think we can do about it?"
Politics

Fed up with the RIAA, a Senate candidate in MA->

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "A Massachusetts software developer, Ken Takusagawa, fed up with the court decisions such as RIAA v. Tenenbaum and MGM v. Grokster, is mounting a independent write-in campaign for the Massachusetts special U.S. Senate election on Tuesday, using Lawrence Lessig's book "Free Culture" as the basis of his campaign platform."
Link to Original Source
Windows

Windows ignores microsoft.com in hosts file

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "If you try to block microsoft.com in your hosts file, windows will just ignore the entry. On Vistas Windows Defender even steps in and tries to stop you from adding microsoft.com to the hosts file, but even if you ignore Defender microsoft.com will still work as if the entry wasn't there."
Security

TSA Subpoenas Bloggers over New Security Directive

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that TSA special agents have served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott demanding that they reveal who leaked a TSA directive outlining new screening measures that went into effect the same day as the Detroit airliner incident. Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents for about three hours and was forced to hand over his laptop computer after the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn't cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo outlining new security measures that would be apparent to the traveling public. ''It literally showed up in my box,'' Frischling told The Associated Press. ''I do not know who it came from.'' Frischling says he provided the agents a signed statement to that effect. The leaked directive included measures such as screening at boarding gates, patting down the upper legs and torso, physically inspecting all travelers' belongings, looking carefully at syringes with powders and liquids, requiring that passengers remain in their seats one hour before landing, and disabling all onboard communications systems, including what is provided by the airline. In a December 29 posting on his blog, Elliott said he had told the TSA agents at his house that he would call his lawyer and get back to them."

Field of Glory uses Gimp where Photoshop fails->

Submitted by Andrew Smith
Andrew Smith writes "I recently covered a story for our regional paper about the computer version of the board game Field of Glory being made with a lot of help from friends and relatives of the development team. As part of the process they had to photograph over 350 military figurines, each from 12 angles, and then painstakingly "cut out" the characters from the resulting 4,200+ photographs. Something that surprised me was that, although developers HexWar do have Photoshop, they had to dump it and use Gimp instead as its Intelligent Scissors tool is superior to Photoshop's comparable offering. The team has already started on expansion packs for the game, an undertaking which will see over 70,000 photographs edited in Gimp in this way, with most of the editing being done by 12- and 14-year-old sisters earning some pretty decent pocket money."
Link to Original Source

Ahead warp factor one, Mr. Sulu.