jaymzru - Slashdot User

Submission + - Hacker builds tracking system for Tor pedophiles

Submitted by Anonymouse on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @09:59AM

Anonymouse writes: Hacker HD Moore has devised a series of "countermeasures" for pedophiles using public Tor servers to search for and download child pornography. Moore's system, which will be released as an open source project, uses patched Tor servers and a decloaking engine to pinpoint the exact location of a pedophile within an organization or residence. From the article: "At this point, my server is able to determine the internal address of the user, the external address from which they access the internet, and the ISP they use to provide DNS resolution, as well as the IP address they come from through the TOR network. This information, along with the unique tracking ID, allows me to identify a specific workstation within an organization or residence."

Submission + - Using Copyright to Protect Privacy?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @07:58AM

An anonymous reader writes: From ABC News:

It was 1996, when Kathleen Stanfield Weinstein was carjacked in a southern New Jersey parking lot. She managed to activate a tape recorder she was carrying and recorded 46 excruciating minutes of her pleas for her life before her attacker bound her hands and feet and smothered her. Last week a judge ruled that the much-sought-after recording of the slain schoolteacher trying to talk her killer out of murdering her would not "under any circumstances'' be released to the media...In a move that legal experts said is virtually unprecedented, Weinstein and New Jersey attorney Carmine Villani copyrighted the recording.

MPAA Fires Back at AACS Decryption Utility 343

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @09:55PM from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

RulerOf writes "The AACS Decryption utility released this past December known as BackupHDDVD originally authored by Muslix64 of the Doom9 forums has received its first official DMCA Takedown Notice. It has been widely speculated that the utility itself was not an infringing piece of software due to the fact that it is merely "a textbook implementation of AACS," written with the help of documents publicly available at the AACS LA's website, and that the AACS Volume Unique Keys that the end user isn't supposed to have access to are in fact the infringing content, but it appears that such is not the case." From the thread "...you must input keys and then it will decrypt the encrypted content. If this is the case, than according to the language of the DMCA it does sound like it is infringing. Section 1201(a) says that it is an infringement to "circumvent a technological measure." The phrase, "circumvent a technological measure" is defined as "descramb(ling) a scrambled work or decrypt(ing) an encrypted work, ... without the authority of the copyright owner." If BackupHDDVD does in fact decrypt encrypted content than per the DMCA it needs a license to do that."

RIAA Announces New Campus Lawsuit Strategy 299

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @07:34PM from the tell-us-everything dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The RIAA is once again revising their lawsuit strategy, and will now be sending college students and others "pre-lawsuit letters." People will now be able to settle for a discount. How nice."

Submission + - RIAA "Incriminate Yourself" Web Site Onlin

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @06:59PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Apparently the RIAA's new "Incriminate Yourself" — er, "Early Settlement" — website is now online. Is it safe to visit such a site or might visitors be subjected there to unwelcome surveillance, such as cookies, spyware, IP address tracking, etc.?"

Patent Office Head Lays Out Reform Strategy 253

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @05:02PM from the long-overdue dept.

jeevesbond writes to tell us that Jon Dudas, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office has laid out a plan for patent reform. "Speaking at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose, Dudas said that characterizing the patent system as hurting innovation is a 'fundamentally wrong' way to frame the debate. 'I have traveled around the world, and every nation is thinking how it can model [intellectual property governance] after the U.S,' Dudas said. 'It's a proven system, over 200 years old. The Supreme Court, Congress and policy makers are involved [in cases and legal reforms] not because the system is broken. It's not perfect, and we should be having the debate on how to improve.'"

Submission + - Digital 'Fair Use' Bill Introduced In Congress

Submitted by

d3ac0n

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @04:11PM

d3ac0n writes: "From the Washington Post: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2007/02/di gital_fair_use_bill_introduc.html

Today, Reps. Rich Boucher (D-Va.) and John Dolittle (R-Calif.) introduced what they call the "Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship" (or FAIR USE) Act they say will make it easier for digital media consumers to use the content they buy.
A refreshing bipartisan effort to return Fair Use to it's rightful place as the law of the land. (for media content, anyway)"

Submission + - RIAA Prepares to Sue 400 College Students

Submitted by on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @03:51PM

An anonymous reader writes: The RIAA sent out "pre-litigation settlement notices" to 400 network users at 13 U.S. universities today, continuing a PR blitz that began last week with a much-publicized list of the 25 most notified universities for copyright infringement. Once again, Ohio University tops the list, with one out of every eight notifications. From the press release: "The RIAA will request that universities forward those letters to the appropriate network user. Under this new approach, a student (or other network user) can settle the record company claims against him or her at a discounted rate before a lawsuit is ever filed."

How Open is Open Source Really? 151

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @02:16PM from the buzzwords-and-the-companies-that-kill-them dept.

jg21 writes to tell us that several industry leaders have chimed in with a response to Nat Torkington's recent piece "Is 'Open Source' Now Completely Meaningless". In the original piece Torkington raised the question of whether the term "open source" had lost any meaning because of companies that use the label yet largly restrict user interaction. Sun's Simon Phpps chimed in by stating: "I see open source as a term relevant to the way communities function and I'd support the reunification of the terms 'Free' and 'open source' around the concept of Free software being developed in open source communities. On that basis it's not dead."

Submission + - Storm Worm

Submitted by on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @09:54AM

An anonymous reader writes: New Storm worm variant targets blogs, forum websites http://www.itpro.co.uk/news/106211/new-storm-worm- variant-targets-blogs-forum-websites.html

Submission + - Avaya turned down Microsoft partnership deal

Submitted by Rob on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @09:54AM

Rob writes: CBRonline.com reports that Avaya claims it was offered a Unified Communications partnership by Microsoft ahead of Nortel, but refused to license its call control technology to the operating system giant. "They came to us to offer that deal and we turned them down, and now they're coming back to try again," said Karyn Mashima, senior VP of strategy and technology at the Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based vendor of enterprise telephony infrastructure. Mashima said a deal would have required licensing what constitutes Avaya's "crown jewels" to Microsoft, which Nortel, "struggling in the enterprise market", was prepared to do. "I guess it was something Nortel felt was worth giving up," she said.

Submission + - Wizards of the Coast has moved away from DRM!

Submitted by

sckeener

on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @09:50AM

sckeener writes: "Wizards of the Coast (D&D) has decided that the PDF market is viable and has switched from DRM to watermarking!

Per Monte Cook

This has been a long time coming, and is, pretty much hands down, the best thing that's happened to the pdf side of the market in a very, very long time. Particularly if one reads between the lines of the announcement and figures that WotC finally has some faith in the medium. Price, number of titles, etc... these are all just more steps that need to be taken, but I think it's pretty clear that this was the big step.
In addition to the 3.0 and 3.5 materials, WotC's ESD Materials (older versions of D&D, modules, etc) are still available."

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn Drawing Near 331

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @09:40AM from the millions-rejoicing-in-the-street dept.

daria42 writes "Ubuntu developers are finalizing preparations for the release of the next version — dubbed Feisty Fawn — of the popular Linux distribution in mid-April. Overnight, Ubuntu developer Tollef Fog Heen announced Ubuntu's main software repository had been frozen — with no changes allowed to the code — as developers got ready to issue a fifth major test version ("Herd 5") of the next version of Ubuntu."

Google Ads Are a Free Speech Issue 148

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @08:56AM from the free-as-in-not-speaking dept.

WebHostingGuy writes "A US Federal Court recently ruled that ads displayed by search engines are protected as free speech. In the case at issue, Yahoo!, Google, and Microsoft were sued by an individual demanding under the 14th Amendment that the search engines display his advertisements concerning fraud in North Carolina. The Court flatly stated that the search engines were exercising their First Amendment right of free speech in deciding what ads they want to display."

Submission + - Ars.Technica Examines BitTorrent Video Store

Submitted by Rocketship Underpant on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @08:51AM

Rocketship Underpant writes: Ars Technica has given the new DRM-based BitTorrent video store a test drive. For those who may not know, the BitTorrent name is following in the footsteps of Napster, using its name to pursue non-free media distribution. But while Napster had nothing in common with its filesharing precursor, BitTorrent does use the bit-torrent protocol for distributing videos.

So does the new BitTorrent store work? "Store" may be an exaggeration; while it was (mostly) capable of taking the reviewer's money, none of the first few videos that were downloaded would play. Unsurprisingly, DRM is the source of the problem. Windows Media Player experienced numerous problems trying to read and authenticate the videos, even though it is the only supported player. In the reviewer's opinion, the service of the BitTorrent store is unacceptable. What's more, even files that work are rendered practically useless by the restrictive BitTorrent DRM, as the video cannot be burned to DVD or played on other devices.

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