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Security

Submission + - 700MB of MediaDefender internal emails leaked (torrentfreak.com) 2

Submitted by qubezz
qubezz writes: The company MediaDefender which works with the RIAA and MPAA against piracy (setting up fake torrents and trackers and disrupting p2p) had earlier set up a fake internet video download site designed to catch and bust users. They denied the entrapment charges. Now 700MB of internal emails from the company from the last 6 months leaked onto BitTorrent trackers detail their entire plan, how they intended to distance themselves from the fake company they set up, future strategies, and reveal other company information such as logins and passwords, wage negotiations, and numerous other aspect of their internal business! torrentfreak.com details some of the jems!
Portables

Submission + - New cellphone bill will clarify contracts (senate.gov)

Submitted by theorem4
theorem4 writes: From TFA: "Washington, D.C. — Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) today unveiled legislation aimed at empowering the 200 million cell phone customers nationwide to make informed choices about a wireless service that best fits their needs and their budget. The Cell Phone Consumer Empowerment Act of 2007 will require wireless service providers to share simple, clear information on their services and charges with customers before they enter into long-term contracts; a thirty-day window in which to exit a contract without early termination fees; and greater flexibility to exit contracts with services that don't meet their needs." It goes on to explain that the bill will tell the FCC to inquire about the practice of "locking" phones.
Communications

Submission + - Charter Claims Big SMTP Outage Due to Microsoft

Submitted by Pissed Off Charter Communications Customer
Pissed Off Charter Communications Customer writes: People I know who use Charter Communications in the upper Midwest have been unable to send email from their home clients (Outlook, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc.) since Saturday. All get a "connection refused" message from Charter's mail server. When pressed by irate customers on day 4 of this ridiculous outage, a Charter supervisor blamed "incompatible Microsoft software" and said that it could be "a month" before any service might be restored.

I didn't want to sign up for Charter in the first place out here in the hinterlands (AT&T seemed to be the only other choice), but I'm thinking they're going to lose a few thousand customers just like me this month.

I can't help but wonder if this is related to Charter's recent company-wide roll-out of Vista. This "Vista Bug Costs Users In Swedish Town Their Internet" article may also be related:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/02/122320 9

Sorry — no official URL; I haven't gotten anyone at Charter to put the "we blame Microsoft" bit in writing yet and they sure haven't told anyone who doesn't pry about the massive and sustained outage.
Graphics

Submission + - ATI/AMD Announces Driver Breakthrough (phoronix.com)

Submitted by
schestowitz
schestowitz writes: "AMD has just dropped the bomb when it announced a major driver breakthrough. To Linux users, the effect of this news is enormous. To gamers and to projects like Compiz-Fusion, this will be the end of a lot of trouble. Phoronix.com seems to have had some insider information because the site already boasts extensive benchmarks and detailed information. From one among five articles: 'Whether you are using a Radeon X300 purchased a few years ago or the Radeon X1950PRO, the 8.41 driver is noticeably faster. How much faster? In many cases it is about 50% faster while in some configurations it may go as high as 90% or more. In fact, in some benchmarks the Mobility Radeon X300 was over 10x faster!'"
Windows

Submission + - Creative Labs' Vista driver team feeling stressed? (creativelabs.com) 2

Submitted by
regular_gonzalez
regular_gonzalez writes: "While the X-Fi's issues under Vista have been widely reported, that doesn't prevent a flood of complaints pouring into the Creative Labs website, posted for all to see. What is more surprising is the employees' responses. A sampling:

# The drivers will be released when we are good and ready and happy with them
# Bitching like a 5 year old won't magically solve all our problems on the drivers.
# Call us hopeless and whatever else all you like, noone else is going to fix these drivers but us, demoralizing us won't bring it faster
# There are already reasonably working drivers supplied with the card, legally our responsibility stops there, think yourselves lucky we even bother updating the drivers at all.
# Anymore of these derogatory posts and we might well just flush the whole XFi/Vista64 saga to the toilet and move on.
Is Creative Labs obliged to treat even the most obnoxious of whiners with a certain level of respect, or is it refreshing to have a company actually state opinions that normally would be kept to themselves?"
Microsoft

Submission + - British Standards Institute votes NO to OOXML (bsi-global.com)

Submitted by mikeb
mikeb writes: Although it's not as plain as a pikestaff from the wording of the press release at http://www.bsi-global.com/en/About-BSI/News-Room/B SI-News-Content/Disciplines/Information-Management /ISOIEC-DIS-29500/ , the key bit is "a number of technical issues in the document which need to be addressed before the UK can approve ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML as an International Standard" — in other words, NO with comments (the alternative would be yes with comments but that cannot force a ballot resolution meeting). I wish anyone well who tries to resolve some of the comments!
Privacy

Submission + - Man Arrested for Refusing to Show Receipt at Circu (michaelrighi.com)

Submitted by
NMerriam
NMerriam writes: "Michael Righi was arrested in Ohio over the weekend for refusing to show his receipt when leaving Circuit City. When the manger and "loss prevention" employee physically prevented the vehicle he was a passenger in from leaving the parking lot, he called the police, who arrived, searched his bag and found he hadn't stolen anything. The officer then asked for Michael's driver's license, which he declined to provide since he wasn't operating a motor vehicle. The officer then arrested him, and upon finding out Michael was legally right about not having to provide a license, went ahead and charged him with "obstructing official business" anyways."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Shaolin Monks to sue over tale of defeat by ninja (www.cbc.ca) 1

Submitted by
Socguy
Socguy writes: "China's Shaolin Temple has demanded a public apology from an Internet user who claimed a Japanese ninja beat its kung fu-practising monks in a showdown, a lawyer said Friday.

An open letter from the temple posted on the Internet on Thursday denied the fight ever took place and called on the person who posted the claim under the name "Five minutes every day" to apologize to the temple's martial arts masters.

Monks from the temple, nestled in the Songshan Mountains of central China's Henan province, said they will consider legal action if he or she doesn't make a public apology.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070831/K083106AU.htm l"
The Internet

Submission + - VirtualEarth Exposes Nuke Sub's Stealth Propeller (nwsource.com)

Submitted by
NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes: "The Seattle Times reports that a local blogger Dan Twohig highlighted photos on Microsoft Virtual Earth of stealth nuclear submarine propeller technology (alternate) taken by aircraft while the submarine was in dry dock in nearby Bangor. Says Twhohig,

You can also use the zoom in and out keys and move around the Bangor Sub Base taking a close up look at the bunkers and magazines where they keep the nuclear weapons. You would think the US government would keep better tabs on this stuff.
Microsoft said it would blur the image if requested (but not this one). This is the same nuclear base the Navy has been petitioning to use trained dolphins and sea lions to patrol."
Handhelds

Submission + - No more checkin for ANA flights

Submitted by ThinkPad760
ThinkPad760 writes: ANA (All Nippon Airways) of Japan will on September 4 complete their rollout of a completely ticketless checkin and boarding pass called SKiP! That's right. You book the ticket online thru either a computer or your mobile phone and then use your ANA Mileage card that has a IC chip or have the booking dowloaded into your IC enabled phone (most phones in Japan have wireless IC chips in them now). When you get to the airport, you go straight to security, place you mobile or IC card on the reader. It confirms your booking, the light turns green and off you go to the gate. At the gate the same thing. 2 peeps and you are in your seat!

I've been using this service out of Haneda to Osaka for the past year. It is fantastic. Since I never have to checkin bags, I turn up to the airport 15 minutes before my flight, walk straight thru security and on board.

From the article.
"Passengers who wish to SKiP, choose their seat after booking and paying for their ticket, in advance of going to the airport. Through mobile Internet technology, seats can even be chosen or changed on the way to the airport. On arrival, they bypass check-in and simply touch one of the following to a reader at security, and then again at their boarding gate: an IC-chip equipped ANA credit card or mileage club card, IC-enabled mobile phone, or printed 2D barcode. The process of buying to flying is thus made very simple and convenient."

See the full story here. http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/416706
Security

Submission + - Swedish Hacker posts 100 hacked Govt. passwords

Submitted by UniversalVM
UniversalVM writes: The Indian Express is carrying an interesting piece about a Swedish hacker who has posted 100 account names and passwords on-line. The hacker calling himself Dan Egerstad from Malmo in Sweden declares that he thinks cyber security is not taken seriously enough and this is the only way he knows that he can bring attention to this problem. Unfortunately the accounts and passwords are to embassies and missions of various government e-mail accounts of India, China, Russia, Japan etc. with a lot of classified information in the accounts. The Indian express investigative team would seem to have gone a bit overboard with the info., not only did they use the information but it sounds as if they have actaully hacked into the accounts.
The piece continues "..The email account of the Indian Ambassador to China contained details of a visit by Rajya Sabha member Arjun Sengupta to Beijing earlier this month for an ILO conference. There was also a transcript of a meeting this evening which a senior Indian official had with the Chinese Foreign Minister.Similarly, accounts of NDA and DRDO officials reveal phone numbers, commercial...". Sounds like they may have done a little bit too much due diligence...the kind that could land somebody in Jail. The site is derangedsecurity.

Comment lol, fun topic (Score 1) 3

by bobdole2111 (#20351197) Attached to: ISP Tech Support - why reset the modem?
I worked for a local ISP that provided service through a major provider's network for a year and power cycling the modem did fix a majority of connection issues. The user's wouldn't be connected to our RADIUS server, we'd use a tool to see if they were connected to the telephone provider's DSLAM, and if they weren't connected then power cycling the modem would often solve the issue. Frequent callers tended to be out in the woods or where the DSL signal sucked, their house wiring was old, or other similar factors. If power cycling the modem didn't resolve the issue, a tech is then dispatched by the phone company to try and find out where the problem was located at (often house wiring, or 'user error' in their home setup). As the other guy said, most of the people who call in don't know anything about computers (somehow the keyboard being unplugged was our fault on a few calls, or at least they wanted me to explain how it happened 'to' them).

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