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Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Job title wise, what am I ?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Long story short, I need to update my resume and I am at a loss to really explain what I do with the least amount of words possible. I work for a dental supply distributor doing IT related things for customers. IT related things ranges from consulting with reps and the customer on plans for an office build out, running cat 5 and other cables, repairing pcs, managing backups and slight domain usage. Anything that touches a computer in a dental office, I/we install it or fix it. I also install, repair and calibrate digital radiography equipment such as digital 2D/3D pans and sensors. Every so often a doctor will want really specific information from the database so I write basic SQL commands to throw it in access. I also produce documentation for my fellow techs, and the users for common things like setting up email, the backup, recovery, etc.

So with all this in mind what position does this sound like? System/Network admin? Any help is appreciated.
Privacy

Submission + - When writing, how anonymous can you be, really? (webis.de)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Do you still think your online writing is, basically, anonymous? Think again! Research has it people put much of their personal traits into their writing, and computers may just be able to pick them up. That's at least what a recently announced competition on author identification (Given a document, who wrote it?) and author profiling (Given a document, what're its author's age and gender?) wants to find out. Alas, re-using other people's writing is no solution either; there's also a competition on plagiarism detection (Given a document, is it an original?). Wanna revisit your recent rants?

Submission + - Australia Plans to Drill 2,000-Year-Old Ice Core in Antarctica

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Australia announced Saturday a new project to drill a deep ice core in Antarctica, which may shed light on past climatic conditions in the continent. The project, Aurora Basin North project, will involve researchers drilling a 2,000-year-old ice core, in order to search for the scientific "holy grail" of the ice core.
Microsoft

Submission + - Missing e-mail

Submitted by Antony-Kyre
Antony-Kyre writes: Since Microsoft hasn’t been of any help, I’m asking Slashdot. Ever since they switched from the previous look to that “Outlook” look in Hotmail, I haven’t received any spam. This isn’t spam I block. This is spam I’m collecting that I’d like to eventually report and/or investigate (long story). It’s been days now (not opening any messages to check the last time I received e-mail), and I don’t know what to do. I usually expect perhaps dozens a week, but unless a spam network was recently taken down, I figure Hotmail is blocking e-mail at its source. Has anyone else been having similar problems?

Submission + - Huge security hole in recent Samsung devices (xda-developers.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A huge security hole has been discovered in recent Samsung devices including phones like the Galaxy S2 and S3. It is possible for every user to obtain root due to a custom faulty memory device created by Samsung.
Your Rights Online

Submission + - Using social media about military operations make you a target? (theage.com.au)

Submitted by AHuxley
AHuxley writes: Could using social media or blog comments about any military operation make you a legal military target? Australian army Land Warfare Studies Centre analyst Chloe Diggins looks at what could make a web 2.0 user a combatant.
The Geneva Convention protecting civilians could be removed if a power feels uploading, downloading or sharing is part of the fight. How long before "knowingly providing material support or resources to an entity that has been designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act." becomes just "providing material support or resources to an entity that has been designated"
Google

Submission + - Google+ Chief Grounded from Twitter by Larry Page 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Vic Gundotra, formerly Sr. VP of Social (and now, of Engineering) at Google, and head of the company’s social networking service Google+, hasn’t posted anything on his Twitter account since July 2011. Why? Responding to a question about his own social networking behavior at SMX 2012, Gundotra explained that he was asked by Google CEO Larry Page not to tweet anymore. 'I was asked not to tweet again.' Gundotra said (video). 'I was asked not to do that by my boss [Page]. I tweeted a tweet about two companies [Microsoft, Nokia] that went viral, went very very viral and made a lot of headline news.' So, what does it say when the Google CEO who reportedly tied all Googlers' bonuses to social networking apparently finds it too dangerous to permit the head of Google+ to participate in social networking?
Security

Submission + - Analysis of Dexter Malware Uncovers Mystery Man, And Links to Zeus (securityledger.com)

Submitted by
chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: "The newly discovered Dexter malware is one of the few examples of a malicious program that targets point of sale terminals, but also communicates, botnet-like, with a command and control infrastructure. According to an analysis by Seculert, the custom malware has infected “hundreds POS systems” including those operated by “big-name retailers, hotels, restaurants and even private parking providers.”
Now a detailed analysis by Verizon’s RISK team suggests that Dexter may be a creation of a group responsible for the ubiquitous Zeus banking Trojan.
By analyzing early variants of Dexter discovered in the wild, Verizon determined that the IP addresses used for Dexter’s command and control were also used to host Zeus related domains and several domains for Vobfus, also known as “the porn worm,” which has been used to deliver the Zeus malware.
Verizon also produced some tantalizing clues as to the identity of one individual who may be a part of the crew responsible for the malware. The RISK team linked the domain registration for a Dexter C&C server to an unusual online handle, “hgfrfv,” that was used to post a number of suggestive help requests (“need help with decrypting a table encrypted with EncryptByKey") in online technical forums, where a live.com e-mail address was also provided. The account name was also linked to a shell account on the outsourcing web site freelancer.com, which lists “hgfrfv” as an individual residing in the Russian Federation."

Submission + - Yahoo! 1. Photographer Finds Paintings Near Exact Replicas of His Photographs (yahoo.com)

Submitted by eneri01
eneri01 writes: A photographer from Virginia was in for quite a surprise when he attended the Scope Art Fair during Miami Beach's famous Art Basel Festival. Jason Levesque takes highly stylized photographs of his subjects, and as he browsed artwork at the fair, he stopped in his tracks when he saw a series of paintings by Josafat Miranda. The paintings very closely resembled some of Levesque's photos. And as if that weren't bad enough, Levesque noticed that he was not credited in any of the paintings. And they weren't cheap: Miranda's paintings were priced at around $4,000 each. Levesque wanted to call out Miranda for his copycat artwork, so he took to Facebook, where he posted his photographs alongside Miranda's paintings. Levesque posted the following message with the photographs: "What Josafat Miranda has done here reveals a total disrespect for photography as an art form." The comparison photos then made their way over to Reddit, where people joined in on Levesque's outrage. The owner of the art gallery has now removed Miranda's paintings. And although Miranda called his paintings a "tribute" to Levesque's work, he has agreed to destroy them. (http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/photographer-finds-paintings-near-exact-replicas-photographs-172935975.html)
Iphone

Submission + - Wal-Mart puts iPhone 5 on sale for $127; are iPhone sales dragging? (latimes.com)

Submitted by
Andy Prough
Andy Prough writes: "Wal-Mart has put various Apple products on sale, including the iPhone 5, marked down to $127. The retailer normally sells the smartphone for about $190, and the sale price is $72 less than the $199 price set by Apple and its carrier partners when buying with a contract. That's an incredible deal for consumers, but the sales' timing raises flags about how well the Apple smartphone is selling. The sale started Friday. Typically, top-of-the-line smartphones start getting discounted if a new version of the device is close to rolling out. But in this case, the iPhone 5 is being marked down more than 35% less than three months after its release — and in the middle of holiday shopping season. Wal-Mart's Apple-product sale comes shortly after a UBS analyst announced he was lowering his iPhone sales estimates for 2013, saying he expects Apple to sell 5 million fewer phones than his previous estimate for each of the next three quarters."
Google

Submission + - Microsoft very particular style of "competing" now in the open (nytimes.com)

Submitted by openfrog
openfrog writes: The New York Times has an interesting article about Mark Penn joining Microsoft, in charge of "strategic and special projects".

Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing opponents through smear campaigns. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

This a scaling up of the anti-Google campaigns he has been mounting up since 1990 as CEO of the PR firm Burson-Marsteller, on behalf of his old Harvard friends Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

Presenting this as a defensive posture for past wounds inflicted on Microsoft, the new strategy is described as moving from working in the shadows to one of perpetrating attacks in plain view.

Reading this makes one feel like distant the idea that capitalism works from competing to bring a better product to the consumer.

I propose creating a new category on Slashdot to track down this behaviour, where we would detect and expose distasteful PR strategies in action, for the benefit of journalists, bloggers and reviewers who could otherwise fall in for the lies.
Japan

Submission + - Identified Fukushima Workers Pelted "With Bottles"

Submitted by
Readycharged
Readycharged writes: "The BBC reports that not only are the "Fukushima 50" considered anti heros in their locale, they also face aggressive hostility when identified.

Dr Jun Shigemura, psychiatrist from Japan's National Defense University, states, "The workers have been through multiple stresses."

"They experienced the plant explosions, the tsunami...(and) radiation exposure. They are also victims of the disaster because they live in the area and have lost homes and family members. And the last thing is the discrimination."

"Yes, discrimination.....the workers (are) not being celebrated....(they) have tried to rent apartments (but) landlords turn them down...some have had plastic bottles thrown at them....some have had papers pinned on their apartment door saying 'Get out, Tepco'."

Reporter Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, corrects the myth that a mere 50 tackled the devastation, stating that there were hundreds working around the clock in shifts.

Whilst the Japanese government seem to want to bury the human drama surrounding the catastrophic event, Nuclear News cites a new book which reports on acts of sacrificial heroism whilst mentioning many of the clear up workers by name."

Submission + - Don't Shoot The SSRI Messenger (plosmedicine.org)

Submitted by Press2ToContinue
Press2ToContinue writes: In 1989, Joseph Wesbecker shot dead eight people and injured 12 others before killing himself at his place of work in Kentucky. Wesbecker had been taking the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant fluoxetine for four weeks before these homicides, and this led to a legal action against the makers of fluoxetine, Eli Lilly [1]. The case was tried and settled in 1994, and as part of the settlement a number of pharmaceutical company documents about drug-induced activation were released into the public domain. Subsequent legal cases, some of which are outlined below, have further raised the possibility of a link between antidepressant use and violence.
...in healthy volunteer studies, hostile events occurred in three of 271 (1.1%) volunteers taking paroxetine, compared with zero in 138 taking placebo [5]. Although not statistically significant, this finding is striking because hostile events are unusual in healthy volunteer trials, and this figure was higher than the rate reported in clinical populations above. GlaxoSmithKline ascribed these episodes to the fact that the volunteers were confined, although this applied to both paroxetine and placebo volunteers. One other healthy volunteer study has reported aggressive behaviour in one volunteer taking sertraline [8].
Nine illustrative cases in which we have between us acted as expert witnesses are summarised in Table 3. In eight of them the person who was taking an antidepressant was the defendant; in one (DS; see Annex), the patient killed three members of his family and then himself, and his son-in-law sued SmithKline Beecham. We have chosen the cases to demonstrate the diversity of the issues they raise. They are described in the Annex.
Many linked emotional storms and thoughts and acts of violence or self-harm to paroxetine, both to starting drug treatment and to dosage change. These were not simple anecdotal reports, in that the analysis clearly pointed to a linkage with dosage.
PLOS study here: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030372?imageURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0030372.t001 Anecdotal Evidence here: http://www.ssristories.com/index.php Many other studies corroborate this hypothesis: http://www.breggin.com/31-49.pdf http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167876003002174 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032700003530
Piracy

Submission + - Music Industry Threatens to Bankrupt Pirate Party Members (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Music industry group the BPI has threatened legal action against six members of the UK Pirate Party, after the party refused to take its Pirate Bay proxy offline. BPI seems to want to hold the individual members of the party responsible for copyright infringements that may occurs via the proxy, which puts them at risk of personal bankruptcy.

Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye criticized the latest music industry threats and reiterated that blocking The Pirate Bay is a disproportionate measure.

Submission + - Guns Don't Kill People SSRIs Do (ssristories.com)

Submitted by blackbeak
blackbeak writes: I'm certainly aware that the recent school shooting is being discussed at length, but the direct correlation of increased prescription of SSRI medication to the increase in horrific incidents is so staggering and so pertinent that this "elephant in the room" deserves it's own discussion. Unlike guns, which can only be held in the hand, SSRIs are held in the mind controlling the hand. You'll see a huge upsurge in news stories again about how guns need to be curtailed, but (again) few stories, if any, about the medications pulling the trigger. Yet SSRIs are obviously behind these killings. SSRIs mess with brain chemistry in ways we cannot fully understand or control, way too often resulting in horrifyingly confused, disordered and psychotic manifestations. How about discussing how these meds are insufficiently tested, driven through the FDA (a "captured" regulatory agency), released into the wild and then prescribed to children on (and off!) label.

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