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Submission + - Linux for blind users (distrowatch.com) 1

Submitted by Dog's_Breakfast
Dog's_Breakfast writes: This week's edition of DistroWatch Weekly News features a unique story entitled "Linux Accessibility — What is it and Why Does It Matter?" The article was written by Robert Cole, a blind person with a computer science degree. Mr Cole points out that Linux offers an excellent set of free tools for seeing-impaired users. Putting together a similar set of tools on Windows would cost at least US$600, about double what a retail copy of Windows itself costs.
Privacy

Submission + - DEA wants to scan all license plates on Utah's 'drug corridor' (sltrib.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Everyone driving on Interstate 15 in southwest Utah may soon have their license plate scanned by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The DEA and two sheriffs are asking permission to install stationary license plate scanners on the freeway in Beaver and Washington counties. The primary purpose would be to catch or build cases against drug traffickers, but at a Utah Legislature committee meeting Wednesday, the sheriffs and a DEA representative described how the scanners also could be used to catch kidnappers and violent criminals.

  That, however, wasn’t the concern of skeptical legislators on the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee. They were worried about the DEA storing the data for two years and who would be able to access it.
Australia

Submission + - Employee "Disciplined" for Installing BitCoin Software on Federal Webservers (delimiter.com.au) 1

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "Around a year ago, a person working for the ABC in Australia with the highest levels of access to systems got caught caught with his fingers on the CPU cycles. The staffer had installed BitCoin mining software on the systems used by the Australian broadcaster. While the story made a bit of a splash at the time, it was finally announced today that the staffer hadn't been sacked, but was merely being disciplined by his manager and having his access to systems restricted. All the stories seem a little vague as to what he actually installed however — on one side he installed the software on a public facing websever, and the ABC itself admits "As this software was for a short time embedded within pages on the ABC website, visitors to these pages may have been exposed to the Bitcoin software" and "the Coalition (current Opposition Parties) was planning on quizzing the ABC further about the issue, including filing a request for the code that would have been downloaded to users’ machines", but on the other side there is no mention of the staffer trying to seed a BitCoin mining botnet through the site, just that mining software had been installed."
The Internet

Submission + - Ultra-Orthodox Jews Rally for a More Kosher Internet 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Michael Grynbaum writes that 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men filed through the gates of Citi Field to discuss the dangers of the Internet. For the attendees, many of whom said they came at the instructions of their rabbis, it was a chance to hear about a moral topic considered gravely important in the Hasidic community: the potential problems that can stem from access to pornography and other explicit content on the uncensored, often incendiary Web. Schlomo Cohen, 24, said he came to Citi Field because the rally was a good way to remind his community to keep temptation at bay. “Desires are out there,” said Cohen. “We have to learn how to control ourselves." The rally was sponsored by a rabbinical group, Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, that is linked to a software company that sells Internet filtering software to Orthodox Jews. Those in attendance were handed fliers that advertised services like a “kosher GPS App” for iPhone and Android phones, which helps users locate synagogues and kosher restaurants. “No one here is a Luddite who denies the manifold benefits that technology has brought to mankind as a whole,” says Eytan Kobre, spokesman for the event. “But at a certain point, a mature, thinking individual stops and says, ‘I’ve got to make a cost-benefit analysis [of] what ways it is enriching my life, [and] in what ways it is undermining it.’”"

Submission + - Journalists Targeted and Harassed by Chicago PD During NATO Protest (theatlanticwire.com)

Submitted by phx_zs
phx_zs writes: Numerous "citizen journalists" who have been streaming live video of the NATO and G8 meeting protests in Chicago have reported being followed, harassed, unlawfully detained and searched by the Chicago Police.
Video has surfaced showing one of these incidents occurring, during which the journalists say they were handcuffed, interrogated, and had their equipment destroyed.
Government

Submission + - Amazon Poised to Get Cut of CA Sales Taxes

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Eager to host Amazon warehouses and receive a cut of the tax on sales to customers statewide, the LA Times reports that two California cities are offering Amazon most of the tax money they stand to gain. After agreeing to collect California sales taxes beginning in the fall, Amazon is setting up two fulfillment centers in San Bernardino and Patterson, which will gain not only jobs but also a tax bonanza: Sales to Amazon customers throughout California will be deemed to take place there, so all the sales tax earmarked for local government operations will go to those two cities. The windfall is so lucrative that local officials are preparing to give Amazon the lion's share of their take as a reward for setting up shop there. 'The tax is supposed to be supporting government,' said Lenny Goldberg, executive director of the California Tax Reform Assn., of the proposed sales-tax rebate. 'Instead, it's going back into Amazon's pocket.' Sen. Mark DeSaulnier added: 'It seems like the private sector finds a way to pit one city against the other. You can't give away sales tax in this manner.'

Submission + - Depressed People Surf the Web Differently

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Are you constantly hitting refresh on your favorite site or spend countless hours surfing the web? If you answered yes, you may be depressed.

Internet usage was shown to vary between people who showed signs of depression and people who had no signs of depression. People who had symptoms of depression were more likely to use file-sharing programs and seemingly cruise around sites at random.

Submission + - Asking /.: Temporary Backup Pouch?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It looks simple. I've got a laptop and a USB HDD for backups. With rsync, I only move changes to the USB HDD for subsequent backups. I'd like to move these changes to a more portable USB stick when I'm away, then sync again to the USB HDD when I get home.

I figured with the normality of the pieces and the situation, there'd be an app for that, but no luck yet.

I'm guessing one could make a hardlink parallel-backup on the laptop at the same time as the USB HDD backup. Then use find to detect changes between it and the actual filesystem when it's time to backup to the USB stick. But there would need to be a way to preserve paths, and a way communicate deletions.

So how about it, /.? I'm joe-user with Ubuntu. I even use grsync for rsync. After several evenings of trying to figure this out, all I've got is a much better understanding of what hardlinks are and are not. What do the smart kids do? Three common pieces of hardware, and a simple-looking task.
Open Source

Submission + - Linux 3.4 Released (kernelnewbies.org)

Submitted by
jrepin
jrepin writes: "This release includes several Btrfs updates: metadata blocks bigger than 4KB, much better metadata performance, better error handling and better recovery tools. There are other features: a new X32 ABI which allows to run in 64 bit mode with 32 bit pointers; several updates to the GPU drivers: early modesetting of Nvidia Geforce 600 'Kepler', support of AMD RadeonHD 7xxx and AMD Trinity APU series, and support of Intel Medfield graphics; support of x86 cpu driver autoprobing, a device-mapper target that stores cryptographic hashes of blocks to check for intrusions, another target to use external read-only devices as origin source of a thin provisioned LVM volume, several perf improvements such as GTK2 report GUI and a new 'Yama' security module."
Privacy

Submission + - Facial Recognition Cameras Set to San Francisco Clubs and Bars (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Fluffeh
Fluffeh writes: "On Friday a company called SceneTap, flipped the on switch enabling cameras installed in around 20 bars to monitor how full the venues are, the mix of men and women, their ages — and to make all this information available live via a iPhone or Android app. Privacy advocates are unimpressed though, as the only hint that people are being monitored is via tiny stickers on the windows. Beyond academics and policy experts, some San Francisco bar owners that originally partnered with SceneTap have said that they’re pulling out and will be taking down the company’s cameras. An increasing number of bars still listed on the SceneTap’s site are now saying that they’re not working with the Chicago startup, including Mr. Smith’s, Southpaw, John Colins, and Bar None."
Science

Submission + - Rare "Annular Solar Eclipse" Tonight (space.com)

Submitted by Trubacca
Trubacca writes: The Northern-Pacific "Ring of Fire" has an opportunity tonight to observe an entirely different "ring of fire": an annular solar eclipse where the moon, owing to it's distance from the Earth, seems smaller than the apparent diameter of the sun. This results in the fiery ring for which the phenomenon takes it's name. Space.com has a decent write-up on the path of the eclipse, times, and tips for safe-viewing.
The Internet

Submission + - Internet traffic monitoring

Submitted by Shalmendo
Shalmendo writes: A client has specific needs and it's been awhile since I last worked on an extensive networking project. Therefore, I need some advice from the slashdot community, and the variety of experts within it.

My client needs to monitor traffic on his LAN, particularly going out to the internet. This will include websites like facebook, myspace, and similar, including from mobile devices.

So far, based on the network education I have, I've concluded that it might be best to get a tap (And some kind of recording system with wireshark, probly a mini-barebone), or replace the existing Linksys router with a custom built mini barebone system with linux routing software and appropriate storage capacity etc to record traffic internally. (either way it looks like I will need to put together a mini barebone system for some purpose)

My client is trying to protect his family from scammers and other unsavory types, and isn't savvy in this matter, so i'm doing it for him.

What I need is a way to record the traffic at a singular point, like modem/router areas, or similar, and a way to scrape out facebook, myspace, and other messages. It also appears that the client's family is using iphones and some game called 'words' which has message capability. Is it possible to scrape messages out of that game's packets, or are they obfuscated? Can I write a script?

What software would you recommend? Linux routing OS? Can we sniff packets and drop them on the internal hard drive? or would a tap be better?

How do I analyze and sort the data afterwards? my client needs easily read evidence (Such as text or screenshots) he can use as proof in discussion with his family to try and intercede in any potentially harmful transactions.

In other words, how can I Achieve this goal? I have basic and medium training in computer networking, so I can make my own cables and such, but I've never worked on this exact kind of project before, and thought it might be better to query slashdot instead of do my own research from scratch.

After days of discussion with the client, it's not plausible to put monitoring software in the devices on the network (due to leagal issues and a few other factors), so I concluded a network tap or other device would be the best way to capture and study what's going on.

This needs to be clandestine.

Serious answers please! I'm not looking to start a debate, i just want some recommendations.
Businesses

Submission + - All 19 Studies on What FileSharing Studies Really Say Posted (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by Dangerous_Minds
Dangerous_Minds writes: You might remember a series of studies that was started earlier this month that promises to reveal what filesharing studies really say. The series was in reaction to a study that was used to promote SOPA. This morning, the series was concluded with some final thoughts from the author, links and full citations for additional review. The author found overwhelmingly that enforcement of copyright was not the answer to the industries woes, but rather, adaptation to a changing technological environment. He also found that, although some studies did comment that file-sharing may have displaced sales, the level of displacement was negligible at worst and had a good positive impact on sales at best. He also found that the only artists that could possibly be harmed by filesharing are the biggest superstars in the industry. Meanwhile, lesser known artists are actually benefiting from filesharing. Those are just a few of the findings. Here's links to the parts of the whole series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19.
Security

Submission + - NATO protests in Chicago: Police van drives into protesters, web video reporters (boingboing.net)

Submitted by
TheGift73
TheGift73 writes: ""Occupy" movement participants and an array of protest groups are among those gathering in Chicago this wekeend to demonstrate outside the NATO summit. Sunday, protesters are ramping up for the largest demonstration of the weekend. So are police and Homeland Security agents. Today, thousands of demonstrators are marching to the convention center where President Obama and other world leaders are meeting. Four men have been arrested on terror charges. Their lawyers claim undercover agents set up a bomb plot, and entrapped them.

Saturday night, at about 10:40PM local time, a Chicago Police van "drove into a crowd of demonstrators who were attempting to cross westbound over the Jackson Street bridge at the Chicago River," according to this video report and testimony from people who were present."
Australia

Submission + - Assange stands 'real chance' of election in Australia (thesundaily.my)

Submitted by Okian Warrior
Okian Warrior writes: Various news sources are reporting the results of a recent Labor Party poll, indicating that Julian Assange would be elected to the Australian senate, should he choose to run.

From the Sun Dailyarticle:

"Controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stands a real chance of winning an upper house seat in his native Australia if he presses ahead with plans to stand for election, a poll showed Saturday.

A survey conducted by the ruling Labor party's internal pollsters UMR Research and published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper showed 25 percent of those polled would vote for the whistleblowing website chief."

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