Image

Seinfeld's Good Samaritan Law Now Reality? Screenshot-sm 735

Posted by samzenpus from the not-that-there-is-anything-wrong-with-that dept.
e3m4n writes "The fictitious 'good samaritan' law from the final episode of Seinfeld (the one that landed them in jail for a year) appears to be headed toward reality for California residents after the house passed this bill. There are some differences, such as direct action is not required, but the concept of guilt by association for not doing the right thing is still on the face of the bill."
The Courts

RIAA Confusion In Tenenbaum & Thomas Cases? 229

Posted by timothy from the well-there-are-a-lot-of-names-yerhonor dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "There seems to be a bit of confusion in RIAA-land these days, caused by the only 2 cases that ever went to trial, Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset in Minnesota, and SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston. In both cases, the RIAA has recently asked for extensions of time. In Thomas-Rasset, they've asked for more time to make up their mind as to whether to accept the reduced verdict of $54,000 the judge has offered them, and in Tenenbaum they've twice asked for more time to prepare their papers opposing Tenenbaum's motion for remittitur. What is more, it has been reported that after the reduction of the verdict, the RIAA offered to settle with Ms. Thomas-Rasset for $25,000, but she turned them down."
Biotech

Monitor Your Health 24x7 With the WIN Human Recorder 66

Posted by timothy from the paranoia-count-high dept.
kkleiner writes "Japanese venture firm WIN Human Recorder Ltd is set to bring a health monitor patch to market that is capable of keeping tabs on all your vitals. The HRS-I is a small (30mm x 30mm x 5mm) lightweight (7g) device that adheres to your chest and relays the data it collects to a computer or mobile phone via wireless connection. While the HRS-I only directly monitors electrocardiograph information, body surface temperature, and movement (via accelerometers), it can connect to sensors for heart rate, brain waves, respiration and many other important health indicators. WIN is selling the HRS-I for around ¥30,000 (~$330) and providing monitoring software for around ¥10,000 (~$110)."
Encryption

80% of Cell Phone Encryption Solutions Insecure 158

Posted by timothy from the nsa-working-on-the-rest dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mobile Magazine writes about a blogger named Notrax who has tested 15 methods of secure encryption for mobile phones; out of those he found only 3 could not be cracked at some level. '12 of them were "worthless." It's easy to take the software at face value when it "tells you" that the call is secured. But how does someone actually go about being sure that it is secured? Notrax did some digging and discovered he could break in to almost all of them in under 30 minutes.'" (Above link is to a slightly older description of Notrax's approach; then, it was 9 out of 10 products that were worthless, instead of 12 out of 15.)
The Internet

NSF Tags $30M For Game-Changing Internet Research 119

Posted by timothy from the does-moving-the-goalposts-count? dept.
coondoggie writes "So you want to build a better Internet? The National Science Foundation today said it would spread $30 million over 2-4 projects that radically transform the Internet 'through new security, reliability and collaborative applications. The NSF said its Future Internet Architectures (FIA) program wants: "Technological innovations and the requirements of emerging and yet to be discovered applications, the Internet of the future is likely to be different from that of today. Proposals should not focus on making the existing Internet better through incremental changes, but rather should focus on designing comprehensive architectures that can meet the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century."'"
Biotech

Neurons Created Directly From Skin Cells 231

Posted by timothy from the largest-organ-of-the-body dept.
alx5000 writes "The Times is running a story about a neurologic breakthrough that could revolutionise treatments for conditions such as Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's: Neurons have been created directly from skin cells for the first time. Quoting neurobiologist Professor Jack Price: 'This suggests that there are no great rules — you can reprogramme anything into anything else.' The article also points out that this method could work around the ethical issues surrounding embryonic stem-cell research."
Portables

Fujitsu Readies Lawsuit Over "iPad" Name 367

Posted by timothy from the walt-disney's-lesson dept.
gyrogeerloose writes "In an event eerily reminiscent of Cisco's suit over Apple's use of the 'iPhone' name, Japanese firm Fujitsu is consulting its attorneys in preparation for going to court over Apple's use of 'iPad' for its latest computing device. Quoted in a New York Times story, Masahiro Yamane, director of Fujitsu's public relations division, said 'It's our understanding that the name is ours.' Fujitsu's application to trademark the iPad name stalled because of an earlier filing by another company and the US Patent and Trademark Office listed Fujitsu's application as abandoned in early 2009, but the company revived its application in June. Apple, which has applied for an international trademark on 'iPad' through a proxy company, has filed a number of requests with the US Patent Office for more time to oppose Fujitsu's application."
Displays

2 Displays and 2 Workspaces With Linux and X? 460

Posted by timothy from the anything-you-set-your-mind-to dept.
Borov writes "I'm planning to buy a second monitor in near future and I was searching for ways to configure it under Linux. It seems there are two main ways: 1) to have one 'big' desktop, which means I have single workspace — changing virtual desktop switches both monitors or 2) to have separate X sessions for each display — which means I have separate workspaces, but I can't move applications between them. I need something in the middle — a separate workspace for each screen, so that I can have independent virtual desktops on each screen, but still have the ability to move applications between monitors (no need to strech one app across both of them). I've read that some tiling window managers can do this kind of thing, but I'd rather go with 'classical' window managers, like Openbox/Gnome/KDE or similar."
Security

Why "Verified By Visa" System Is Insecure 243

Posted by timothy from the shifting-the-blame dept.
angry tapir writes "A widely deployed system intended to reduce on-line payment card fraud is fraught with security problems, according to University of Cambridge researchers. The system is called 3-D Secure (3DS) but is better known under the names Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode. Steven J. Murdoch, a security researcher at the University of Cambridge, and security engineering professor Ross Anderson contend there are several flaws with 3DS. One of their main points is how 3DS is integrated into Web sites during a transaction — e-Commerce Web sites display 3DS in an iframe."
Cellphones

With New SDK, VoIP Over 3G Apps Now Working On iPhone 171

Posted by timothy from the try-reading-that-headline-15-years-ago dept.
silverpig writes "Yesterday marked the announcement of the Apple iPad device, and with it came a new version of the SDK. In this new version, Apple has lifted the VoIP over 3G restrictions that limited VoIP traffic to wifi only. This morning, Fring announced that its iPhone app is 3G-capable starting immediately. No update is needed as apparently the app had 3G capability all along, but a server-side block prevented its use. Furthermore, apparently a 3G-capable version of Skype has been ready for some time now, and has been waiting for this restriction to be lifted."
Google

Google Proposes DNS Extension 271

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you-know-my-name dept.
ElusiveJoe writes "Google, along with a group of DNS and content providers, hopes to alter the DNS protocol. Currently, a DNS request can be sent to a recursive DNS server, which would send out requests to other DNS servers from its own IP address, thus acting somewhat similar to a proxy server. The proposed modification would allow authoritative nameservers to expose your IP address (instead of an address of your ISP's DNS server, for example) in order to 'load balance traffic and send users to a nearby server.' Or it would allow any interested party to look at your DNS requests. Or it would send a user from Iran or Libya to a 'domain name doesn't exist' server."
Image

US Grants Home Schooling German Family Political Asylum Screenshot-sm 1324

Posted by samzenpus from the come-get-you-some-learnin dept.
A US judge has granted political asylum to a family who said they fled Germany to avoid persecution for home schooling their children. Uwe Romeike and his wife, Hannelore, moved to Tennessee after German authorities fined them for keeping their children out of school and sent police to escort them to classes. Mike Connelly, attorney for the Home School Legal Defence Association, argued the case. He says, "Home schoolers in Germany are a particular social group, which is one of the protected grounds under the asylum law. This judge looked at the evidence, he heard their testimony, and he felt that the way Germany is treating home schoolers is wrong. The rights being violated here are basic human rights."
Security

Interview With a Convicted 419 Scammer 184

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-am-the-prince-of-your-heart dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Scam awareness website www.scam-detectives.co.uk has published a two part interview with convicted Nigerian 419 scammer, 'John.' 'John' talks about his experiences of scam victims, how he gains their trust and convinces them to part with their money, and how he would go back for another 'bite' after the original scam, posing as a law enforcement official who has apprehended the scammer and recovered the funds ... for a fee, of course."
Government

Meet the Military's Cyber-Security Forces 148

Posted by CmdrTaco from the can't-wait-to-see-the-ad-campaign dept.
destinyland writes "How exactly would the military fight a cyber war? In August 2009, the U.S. Air Force activated its new cyberspace combat unit, the 24th Air Force, to 'provide combat-ready forces trained and equipped to conduct sustained cyber operations.' It's commanded by former Minuteman missile and satellite-jamming specialist Major General Richard Webber. (And under his command are two wings, the 688th Information Operations Wing and the 67th Network Warfare Wing, plus a combat communications units.) Meanwhile, to counter the threat of cyber warfare, DARPA is still deploying the National Cyber Range, a test bed of networked computers to test countermeasures against 'cyberwar.' (According to one report, it provides 'a virtual network world — to be populated by mirror computers and inhabited by myriad software sim-people "replicants," and used as a firing range in which to develop the art of cyber warfare.') The Obama administration has even added a military cybersecurity coordinator to the National Security team."
Censorship

Ballmer Defends Microsoft In China 162

Posted by CmdrTaco from the race-is-on dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mr. Ballmer has recently posted on the official Microsoft blog discussing future business in China and defending Microsoft's stance of cooperating with the government even as other large IT companies have begun making public condemnations (Google and Twitter being the most prominent). Couple this with Bill Gate's speech on China's censorship being not all that bad (a speech very well received by Chinese media) and you've got people wondering: Is Microsoft aiming to take Google's place in China?"

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