Fluffeh - Slashdot User

Submission + - Netherlands cements Net Neutrality in Law (arstechnica.com)

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Fluffeh

on Thursday May 10, 2012 @06:23PM

Fluffeh writes: "A while back, Dutch Telcos started to sing the "We are losing money due to internet services!" song and floated new plans that would make consumers pay extra for data used by apps that comflicted with their own services — apps like Skype for example. The politicians stepped in however, and wrote laws forbidding this. Now, the legislation has finally passed through the senate and the Netherlands is an officially Net Neutral country, the second in the world — Chile did this a while back. That's not to say that Telcos aren't smarting from the new laws, they have been busy severly reducing data on plans and charging extra for their services while using the very same apps in their marketing campaigns — sorry, I should rephrase that to "adapting to the new marketplace"."

Submission + - Mozilla Claims 'IE only' on Windows 8 ARM (arstechnica.com)

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Fluffeh

on Thursday May 10, 2012 @06:12PM

Fluffeh writes: "Here we go again, it seems that sometimes Microsoft just can't learn old lessons. Mozilla has claimed that due to "technical restrictions" that Microsoft is putting on the Windows 8 ARM port, IE will be the only browser able to work. Unlike the x86 flavor, WOA (Windows on ARM) will not broadly support legacy applications. WOA will only run applications that are distributed through Microsoft’s application store. Third-party developers who bring their software to WOA will be confined to using the Windows Runtime stack and standard platform APIs. As Microsoft explained in a February blog post, the point of these restrictions are to maximize security, performance, and battery life for WOA users. The downside of this approach is that it makes it difficult to support certain kinds of highly complex third-party software, such as Web browsers, that require more capabilities than those provided by the standard API set."

Submission + - North Korea Jamming GPS Signals In South Korea (arstechnica.com)

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Fluffeh

on Wednesday May 09, 2012 @08:29PM

Fluffeh writes: "North Korea has been looking for new and inventive ways to mess with South Korea. It seems that their missile launch fizzled a bit though, so those wacky folks from the North have bought a few GPS jamming trucks from Russia and are now blocking GPS signals around their city of Kaeson. While Kaeson is around 60 Km inside their borders, the jamming circle is around 100 Km, so it actually covers good parts of South Korea including the airports at Inchon and Gimpo. While no accidents have been caused as yet, it has caused quite some disruption and has made ocean going craft suffer as well due to their heavy reliance on GPS signals."

Submission + - Homeland Security: "New Scanners Have Issues." (wired.com)

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Fluffeh

on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @07:33PM

Fluffeh writes: "Although the DHS has spent around $90 million upgrading magnetometers with the new nudie scanners, federal investigators “identified vulnerabilities in the screening process” at domestic airports using so-called “full body scanners,” according to a classified internal Department of Homeland Security report. Exactly how bad the body scanners are is not being divulged publicly, but the Inspector General report made eight separate recommendations on how to improve screening. To quiet privacy concerns, the authorities are also spending $7 million to “remove the human factor from the image review process” and replace the passenger’s image with an avatar."

Submission + - Australian Greens Party Demanding Australia Gets Out of ACTA (delimiter.com.au)

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Fluffeh

on Tuesday May 08, 2012 @02:27AM

Fluffeh writes: "The Greens have demanded that Australia’s Government cancel its participation in the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement international treaty in the wake of an expected imminent rejection of the proposal by the European Union and significant and ongoing global protests against a number of its terms expected to harm Internet freedom. Late last week, European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said that ACTA was unlikely to come into effect in Europe, despite the fact that most of the 27 EU states have signed the treaty. Greens Communications Spokesperson Scott Ludlam, who has been a strident critic of ACTA said the “ACTA bandwagon has crashed” and it was “time for Australia to get off”. “I am hoping [DFAT] will take a second look, and conduct a proper analysis on the threats to privacy, cheaper medicine and our economic interests posed by this Agreement.”."

Submission + - Apple Vs Samsung - 1 Year Review: 50 Filings and 10 Countries (cnet.com)

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Fluffeh

on Monday May 07, 2012 @10:52PM

Fluffeh writes: "Around a year after the initial Apple Vs Samsung (Apple claimed that Samsung copied the "Look and Feel" of the iPad and iPhone) case, it seems that neither side is calling Uncle, and both giants seem to have more than enough lawyers to fill plenty of courtrooms. The current tally is over 50 filings across 10 countries since this started according to patent expert Florian Mueller. Although Apple and Samsung are due in court for settlement talks in front of a Judge later this month, neither side is backing down much. This review also shows just how complicated, and how ferocious these disputes can get when two behemoths are butting heads."

Submission + - Government Asks When It Can Shut Down Wireless Communications (arstechnica.com)

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Fluffeh

on Monday May 07, 2012 @10:37PM

Fluffeh writes: "Around nine months ago, BART Police asked to have wireless communications disabled between Trans Bay Tube Portal and the Balboa Park Station. That was because they knew a public protest was to take place there — and the service to the underground communication system was disabled. This affected not only cellphone signals, but also the radio systems of Police, Fire and Ambulance crews within the underground. This led to an even larger protest at a BART station and many folks filed complaints along with the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation. The FCC responded by launching a probe into the incident with the results being a mixed bag of "To protect citizens!" and "Only in extreme cases.", not to mention the classic "But Terrorists use wireless communications!", but even if the probe doesn't lead to a full proceeding and formal order, the findings may well be used as a guide for many years to come."

Submission + - Heartland Institute Learning to Troll On Billboards (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Monday May 07, 2012 @06:21PM

Fluffeh writes: "The Heartland Institute is a lovely group of folks who take issue with mainstream climate science, they organise an annual get-together of like minded folk and talk trash about environmental change "The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society." (That's from a press release!). Recently when they were tricked by a researcher into sending him a lot of internal documents, they decided to go on the offensive and also get some more media attention, after all any story is a good story right? Launching a billboard with the Unabomber on it with the slogan "I still believe in Global Warming. Do You?" was just the start, with the institute planning Fidel Castro, Charles Manson and possibly even Osama Bin Laden. That's when even their stout backers threatened to walk away, backing started to dry up — and it seems that common sense started to prevail — but only so far as to stop them making their message TOO public."

Submission + - Google gets Driverless License for Nevada Roads (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Monday May 07, 2012 @06:07PM

Fluffeh writes: "On Monday, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles approved Google’s license application to test autonomous vehicles on the state’s roads. The state had approved such laws back in February, and has now begun issuing licenses based on those regulations. The state previously outlined that companies that want to test such vehicles will need an insurance bond of $1 million and must provide detailed outlines of where they plan to test it and under what conditions. Further, the car must have two people in it at all times, with one behind the wheel who can take control of the vehicle if needed. The Autonomous Review Committee of the Nevada DMV is supervising the first licensing procedure and has now approved corresponding plates to go with it, complete with a red background and infinity symbol."

Submission + - How the Syrian Games Industry Crumbled Under Sanctions and Violence (arstechnica.com)

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Fluffeh

on Monday May 07, 2012 @12:22AM

Fluffeh writes: "Syria's games industry now looks like just another collateral casualty of dictator Bashar Al-Assad's struggle to hold power. "Life for Syrian game developers has never been better," joked Falafel Games founder Radwan Kasmiya, "You can test the action on the streets and get back to your desktop to script it on your keyboard." Any momentum Syria may have been building as a regional game development hub slowed considerably in 2004, when then-US President George W. Bush levied economic sanctions against the country. Under the sanctions, Syria's game developers found themselves cut off from investment money they needed to grow, as well as from other relationships that were just as important as cash. "Any [closure of opportunity] is devastating to a budding games company as global partnerships are completely hindered," said Rawan Sha'ban of the Jordanian game development company Quirkat. "Even at the simplest infrastructure level, game development engines [from the US] cannot be purchased in a sanctioned country.""

Submission + - Not just Apple and Microsoft, How Google Dodges Tax in Australia

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Fluffeh

on Thursday May 03, 2012 @06:28PM

Fluffeh writes: "Hot on the heels of other tax minimisation strategies that have been reported lately, Google Australia seems to have paid a mere $74k on estimates of around a $1 billion dollar income. In its financial statements, Google Australia did not list its activities as being the provision of advertising and software services, both of which it charges Australian customers for. Instead, it noted that it has agreements with its US parent, Google Inc, and a company called Walkway Technologies for the provision of research and development services, and with Google Ireland and Google Asia-Pacific for the provision of sales and marketing services. Consequently, almost all of Google Australia’s revenues were listed as being for services thus rendered to those companies."

Submission + - 1.Make Movie. 2.Release it for Free 3... 4.Profit $1 Million Dollars (techdirt.com) 1

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @06:20PM

Fluffeh writes: "In an interesting case that seems to make Big Media talk sound like gibberish, movie makers James Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch made a documentary called Hunrgy for Change and released it online totally free — for ten days — then it seems they started to count their money, over a million dollars of it. Everyone who viewed HUNGRY FOR CHANGE was given access to three special offers: the DVD for $34.95, the new recipe book for $49.95, or the DVD and the recipe book for $74.95. Each order came with free bonuses and free shipping. In the first 14 days, over 20,800 orders were placed totaling over $1 million in sales. Although most purchasers had already seen the film for free, many wanted to buy a copy for themselves or purchase it as a gift for family or friends."

Submission + - Can APIs be copyrighted? Not in the EU's court. (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Wednesday May 02, 2012 @06:07PM

Fluffeh writes: "While the case at hand is all about SAS, a popular statistical package, it sings a song very close to the current Oracle Vs Google case where one of the main questions is "Can APIs be copyrighted?" which the US judge passed over to the jury to answer. The folks on the other side of the pond have thought about it — and came to a firm conclusion of "No" — "The European Court of Justice ruled on Wednesday that application programming interfaces (APIs) and other functional characteristics of computer software are not eligible for copyright protection. Users have the right to examine computer software in order to clone its functionality—and vendors cannot override these user rights with a license agreement, the court said.""

Submission + - NYTimes: "FBI Foils its own Terrorist Plots" (techdirt.com)

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Tuesday May 01, 2012 @06:23PM

Fluffeh writes: "Breaking up terrorist plots is one of the main goals of the FBI these days, but if it can't do that, well, it seems that making plots up, them valiantly stopping them is okay too — but the NYTimes is calling them on it. "The United States has been narrowly saved from lethal terrorist plots in recent years — or so it has seemed. A would-be suicide bomber was intercepted on his way to the Capitol; a scheme to bomb synagogues and shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft was developed by men in Newburgh, N.Y.; and a fanciful idea to fly explosive-laden model planes into the Pentagon and the Capitol was hatched in Massachusetts.

But all these dramas were facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists offering a dummy missile, fake C-4 explosives, a disarmed suicide vest and rudimentary training. Suspects naïvely played their parts until they were arrested.""

Submission + - Pakistani Court Rules on Internet Cencorship: Unconstitutional (rsf.org)

Submitted by

Fluffeh

on Tuesday May 01, 2012 @06:16PM

Fluffeh writes: "It looks like some Pakistanis are taking on "the man". With plans laid by the Pakistani Government that could sink up to fifty million webites that it isn't a fan of, Pakistanis took the matter to court — which ruled that such action by the government was unconstitutional. Reporters without Borders was however a little more skeptical "The high court’s ruling, if respected, would make it impossible for the government to introduce any nationwide website filtering system.

While welcoming the ruling, which penalizes the lack of transparency in the PTA’s past website blocking, Reporters Without Borders calls for vigilance because the PTA could try to circumvent it by devising a constitutional procedure based on the anti-blasphemy law and national security provisions. ""

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