Robwiz - Slashdot User

Submission + - 2700 Personal Tax Files Missing After CRA Auditor (theglobeandmail.com)

Submitted by

DotNM

on Monday November 07, 2011 @10:14AM

DotNM writes: "The personal information of almost 2700 Canadians are missing from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) after a worker took them home and let a friend download them onto a laptop.

The worker asked a computer technician at the CRA to download the personal information of the taxpayers along with the worker's emails to support a grievance against the CRA for failing to accomodate her medical condition.

The technician downloaded the information for her onto 16 CDs, which were not encrypted contrary to government standards.

Although the incident occurred in 2006, the CRA appears to have done little, if anything, to fix these issues."

Submission + - The Time Weaver - Where FOSS meets Fantasy (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Synchis

on Monday November 07, 2011 @10:01AM

Synchis writes: "Ken Starks of the Helios Project has a blog post up today about an author, Thomas A. Knight, who has pledged a generous percentage of every book sale to The Helios Initiative. Thomas has not only written a great book for Fantasy fans, he managed to do it using only FOSS tools to get it done."

Submission + - Amazon announces a new benefit for Kindle owners. (kindles-fire.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07, 2011 @10:00AM

An anonymous reader writes: Today (11/7/11) Amazon announced a new benefit for Kindle owners with an Amazon Prime membership: the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library.

Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free, including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers — as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates. No other e-reader or ebook store offers such a service.

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library features a wide array of popular titles, including Water for Elephants, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, and Fast Food Nation – plus award-winning novels such as The Finkler Question, motivational books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, biographies and memoirs including Kitchen Confidential, and Pulitzer Prize-winning books like Guns, Germs, and Steel.

Submission + - Boeing Dreamliner landing systems fail (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold on Monday November 07, 2011 @09:16AM

DMandPenfold writes: "The automated undercarriage systems on a Boeing Dreamliner, a new high-tech jumbo jet, entirely failed to work during the landing approach of a domestic Japanese flight carrying 250 passengers this morning.

The news follows a similar incident last week on a more conventional Boeing jet, in which a plane on a flight to Warsaw was forced to land on its belly.

In today’s problem, the automated landing gear did not operate, but the pilot was able to lower the landing gear manually – using gravity – and landed on the plane's second approach to the runway.

It was the first serious operational problem for the new Dreamliner aircraft, which has been in commercial use for only one week. The planes were sold to airlines partly on the basis of their advanced automated systems.

The Dreamliners have an all-electronic cockpit, and an aircraft-wide computer network that links the flight deck to all of the control systems as well as providing real time data to air control staff on the ground. Many of the safety systems, including the brakes, are electronically controlled, with some traditional hydraulic systems taken out.

The pilot of today’s All Nippon Airways flight 651 was warned by on-board monitoring systems, on his approach to Okayama airport, that the landing gear had failed to engage. It is understood that the monitoring screens may have identified a problem with the systems controlling undercarriage hydraulic valves.

Boeing deferred comment to All Nippon Airways, which had not provided more detail at the time of writing on why the automated systems failed to work or how the problem will be prevented in the future.

In 2008, the US Federal Aviation Administration warned that the Dreamliner could be vulnerable to hacking, because of the way critical flight systems are linked with those used by passengers. They said the problems were "critical to the safety and maintenance" of the aircraft."

Submission + - Windows Phone Unlock Tool Goes Official (eweekeurope.co.uk) 1

Submitted by

judgecorp

on Monday November 07, 2011 @07:49AM

judgecorp writes: "A tool to unlock (or "jailbreak" if you like) Windows Phone devices is now available with Microsoft's blessing. ChevronWP7 Labs was withdrawn at Microsoft's request a year ago, but is back now, allowing users to run any app on their phones, for a cost of $9."

Submission + - Indie Linux Game Devs Upload Own Game on PirateBay (ubuntuvibes.com)

Submitted by dartttt on Tuesday September 13, 2011 @09:09AM

dartttt writes: To counter the piracy problem, Tiny Build Games who released No Time To Explain few days back, uploaded their own version of game on Pirate Bay. But there is a difference is this version and the original game that you can buy from the game website.

All in game characters wear Pirate hats and entire game is Pirate themed basically making it No Time to Explain 'Pirate Edition'.

Xbox Modding Trial Dismissed 179

Posted by Soulskill on Friday December 03, 2010 @01:28AM from the game-over dept.

It seems the harsh words from District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez on Wednesday had their intended effect; prosecutors in Matthew Crippen's Xbox modding case have now dismissed the indictment. Quoting Wired: "Witness No. 1, Tony Rosario, was an undercover agent with the Entertainment Software Association. He told jurors Wednesday that he paid Crippen $60 in 2008 to modify an Xbox, and secretly videotaped the operation. Rosario had responded to Crippen’s advertisement on the internet and met Crippen at his Anaheim house. All of that had been laid out in pretrial motions. But during his testimony, Rosario also said Crippen inserted a pirated video game into the console to verify that the hack worked. That was a new detail that helped the government meet an obligation imposed by the judge that very morning, when Gutierrez ruled that the government had to prove Crippen knew he was breaking the law by modding Xboxes. But nowhere in Rosario’s reports or sworn declarations was it mentioned that Crippen put a pirated game into the console. ... [Prosecutor Allen Chiu] conceded he never forwarded that information to the defense."

Submission + - Universal Sends DMCA Takedown On 1980 Report (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19, 2010 @01:04PM

An anonymous reader writes: For many, many years, every time some new technology has come along, the music industry has insisted that it's going to "kill" the industry. The player piano was supposed to kill live music. So was the radio. And, of course, every time this happens the press is willing to take the industry's word at face value. In 1980, the news program 20/20 posted a report all about how "home taping is killing music," with various recording industry execs insisting the industry was on its last legs unless something was done. Someone posted that 20/20 episode to YouTube a few years back, where it sat in obscurity until people noticed it a couple weeks ago. And suddenly, Universal Music issued a takedown notice for the show. Universal Music does not own 20/20, and there were only brief clips of music in the show. It appears the only reason for Universal to issue the takedown is that it doesn't want you seeing how badly it overreacted in the past.

Submission + - Oracle backs out of the MySQL Conference (oracle.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 19, 2010 @12:32PM

An anonymous reader writes: Along side its move to to scuttle OpenSolaris, remove itself from the Open Office foundation, sue Google over its use of Java, Oracle has now removed itself from the MySQL Conference and is now pushing MySQL users to attend its own user group conference that it funds that has been placed on the same week as the O'Reilly conference. Is there any evidence left that Oracle has nothing but hostile intentions toward open source at this point?

Submission + - XKCD's Gone Unix (xkcd.com)

Submitted by fortapocalypse on Thursday April 01, 2010 @01:27PM

fortapocalypse writes: Unixkcd's interface is not unique. Many have chosen to switch to Unix as the primary interface for their sites. But, there is much to be said for their implementation- for example, their approach to viewing images in the terminal is crisp and refreshing. And most project managers and executives will start having to hire contractors to surf the web for them, which should help those currently unemployed with Unix experience to find jobs quickly. There is no Web 4.0. It is Unix from here-on-out.

Toshiba Employee Arrested For Selling Software To Break Copy Limits 90

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday November 26, 2009 @01:10PM from the those-three-little-letters dept.

JoshuaInNippon writes "A Toshiba employee in western Japan has been arrested on charges of copyright violations for selling software online that breaks copying limits on certain Japanese digital TV recording and playback devices. The software specifically overrides limits on a program called 'dubbing10,' which is used in devices sold by companies such as Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic. It is believed that the man generated thousands of dollars worth of earnings for himself by selling to at least 712 people, including one teenager who then resold the software to another 240 people. This is the first disclosed case in Japan of someone being arrested for selling such limit-removal software for digital TV recording. Since it sounds like he has already admitted to selling it (although he denies creating it), and due to the generally high conviction rate of those arrested by Japanese police, his future does not look so bright at the moment."

Comment Headline clarity issues (Score 2, Interesting) 165

by Robwiz on Friday January 25, 2008 @09:55AM (#22180570) Attached to: Big Delays, Small Laptops: OLPC XO Recipients Mad

Doesn't "Big Delays, Small Laptops: OLPC XO Recipients Mad" imply that some XO Recipients are mad because the laptop is small?

The actual article is "Big Delays for Small Laptops", it's some of the people who haven't received them yet who are upset.
I was expecting mine (in Canada) some time in February based on the initial delays in shipping to Canada. So I was quite pleased when it showed up last week.

I guess that make me somewhat ineligible to advocate patience if you're still waiting for yours, but I can say that I wasn't disappointed in mine once it arrived.

Submission + - CSI Victim of Drive-by DRM

Submitted by BillGatesLoveChild on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @11:11PM

BillGatesLoveChild writes: The Sydney Morning Herald reports Australian viewers have been plagued by their new Digital TVs mysteriously locking up. Strangely most of the lockups occurred on one TV station and one program in particular: CSI.

Although the TV station involved refused to confirm or deny it, it now appears to be because they were altering the digital TV transmission to prevent viewers from exercising their Fair Use Rights to copy it. The problem was initially reported with LG Brand TV sets, other Digital TV owners are reporting similar problems.

If a TV stations zealtory for enforcing DRM prevents viewers from watching their programs, isn't it time to set back and ask if the whole DRM crusade is completely broken? So far no one has suggested that affected viewers can download CSI ad-free off Bit Torrent anyway.

Submission + - Pirate Hounds Find Discs Worth $3 Million

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Tuesday March 20, 2007 @02:31PM

eldavojohn writes: "Following a story from two days ago, the featured dogs of the article, Flo & Lucky have found illegal discs with a street value of $3 million USD in Malaysia. From the article, "First checks of computers found in the raid appeared to show they were used to host a Web site selling illegal recordings to customers in Singapore and other countries." Worth noting is that these stories are hitting right as Malaysia has entered talks to negotiate a free-trade pact with the United States."

Submission + - RIAA going after Internet Radio

Submitted by scopius on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @11:26AM

scopius writes: As reported this morning in The Wall Street Journal, the RIAA is now pushing Congress to hike royalty rates for Internet Radio. Tim Westergreen, co-founder of Pandora.com, claims that this action will shut down Pandora, along with many other internet radio stations. The rates set by the board are .08 cents per song per listener, and this rate is in addition to royalties already paid to the songwriters of the works. Up until this point, these stations had been paying a flat fee, but these new rates will be much larger than revenues for most stations. One interesting point is that normal radio doesn't have to pay anything like this rate, they only pay the songwriters royalties, according to the article.

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