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Networking

Submission + - Terrorists are like Starfish (?) (washingtontimes.com)

Submitted by
Mark D. Drapeau
Mark D. Drapeau writes: "Could biological metaphors about networking and systems shed light on one of the most difficult issues of our time — terrorism? According to a new op-ed in the 31 July 2007 Washington Times, and a new book entitled The Starfish and the Spider, the answer is a resounding "Yes". An excerpt from the op-ed reads: *** Most large institutions are organized hierarchically with centralized leadership. Corporations have CEOs, armies have generals, countries have presidents. When competing against centralized organizations, promoting diffusion and disrupting cohesion are considered progressive. However, al Qaeda has a constantly mutating, horizontal structure composed of an inspirational catalyst in the form of Osama bin Laden and other central figures joined with numerous small groups brought together not by orders but ideology. Here, lack of structure is a strength. Little thought is given, however, to how such a decentralized terrorist network structure affects the strategy for combating it. "The Starfish and the Spider," a new book about corporate strategy written for a business audience, has a wider application — combating terrorism — and sheds light on this issue.*** Read more here: http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070731/COMMEN TARY/107310009/1012 And here: http://www.starfishandspider.com/"
Editorial

Submission + - But Mom! The other 61-year-olds get an allowance! (reuters.com)

Submitted by
deweycheetham
deweycheetham writes: "ROME (Reuters) — A Sicilian mother took away her 61-year-old son's house keys, cut off his allowance and hauled him to the police station because he stayed out late. http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idU SL0288587220070802 The article goes on to say "Most Italian men still live at home late into their 30s, enjoying their "mamma's" cooking, washing and ironing.". Well Pack my bags, I am moving to Italy."
Programming

Submission + - Plans for the Rich Web Application Backplane 2

Submitted by IndioMan
IndioMan writes: Both mashups and Ajax are now firmly entrenched in the Web landscape. Put them together and you have the makings for Rich Web applications. This article explains the Rich Web Application Backplane, currently a W3C Note, which is designed to bring standardization to the field, proving a set of common building blocks, or components, these applications tend to use.
Republicans

Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence 1574

Posted by kdawson from the next-stop-paris dept.
An anonymous reader notes that President Bush has decided to commute Scooter Libby's sentence after numerous appeals failed. Libby was convicted in March of obstruction of justice in connection with the Valerie Plame affair. The President's action spares Libby from 30 months behind bars."
The Internet

Bill to Treat Bloggers as Lobbyists Defeated 537

Posted by CowboyNeal from the common-sense-prevails dept.
Lawrence Person writes "The attempt to require political bloggers to register as lobbyists previously reported by Slashdot has been stripped out of the lobbying reform bill. The vote was 55 to 43 to defeat the provision. All 48 Republicans, as well as 7 Democrats, voted against requiring bloggers to register; all 43 votes in favor of keeping the registration provision were by Democrats."
Security

Submission + - Wikileaks - anonymous whistle-blowing

Submitted by too_old_to_be_irate
too_old_to_be_irate writes: An interesting exercise — over a million documents already? From the site:

Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.1 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.
Microsoft

Submission + - Bill Gates funds anti-net neutrality Congressman

Submitted by
amigoro
amigoro writes: "It has emerged that Bill Gates funded an anti-neutrality Congressman at the last election. He gave $2,000, the maximum possible, to Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), who voted against Markey's "Net Neutrality Act of 2006". He also meant to be working closely with another anti-net neutrality Congressman, Cliff Stearns.

This is hardly surprising, considering the fact that Microsoft stands to lose, not gain, from net neutrality."
Security

Submission + - Money Laundering Via MMO's

Submitted by Anonymous
Anonymous writes: Apparently, it is rather easy to move illicit funds through virtual economies such as Second Life (among many others) via currency conversion from real cash to virtual cash, followed by transferring that to another player, who then converts it back to real cash. Although the author of this posting gives a simple scenario, it is quite plausible that motivated criminals can be capable of much more robust schemes. http://www.world-check.com/articles/2007/01/02/vir tual-money-laundering-now-available-world-wide-/
The Internet

Submission + - New molecules for a faster Internet

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "An international team of researchers has discovered a new generation of optical molecules which interact 50% more strongly with light than any molecules ever tested. These organic molecules, known as chromophores, have been theorized by physicists at Washington State University, synthesized by chemists in China and tested for their actual optical properties by chemists in Belgium. But if they're excellent candidates for being used in optical technologies such as optical switches and Internet connections, these new materials should not be used before several years — if ever. Read more for additional details and a picture of the physicist who broke a law he established in 1999."
Biotech

Submission + - Researchers find potential cure for cancer

Submitted by MECC
MECC writes: Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have found a way to kill cancer cells without radiation or toxic chemicals. From the article: 'A group of researchers claim that they are patenting a possible cure for cancer involving nothing more than sugar and short-chain fatty acid combination.'
Security

IE6 Was Unsafe 284 Days In 2006 137

Posted by kdawson from the barn-door-of-vulnerability dept.
An anonymous reader sends us to the Washington Post's Security Fix blog, where Brian Krebs has toted up the total vulnerability days for IE6 users in 2006. From the article: "For a total 284 days in 2006 (or more than nine months out of the year), exploit code for known, unpatched critical flaws in pre-IE7 versions of the browser was publicly available on the Internet. Likewise, there were at least 98 days last year in which no software fixes from Microsoft were available to fix IE flaws that criminals were actively using to steal personal and financial data from users... In contrast, Internet Explorer's closest competitor in terms of market share — Mozilla's Firefox browser — experienced a single period lasting just nine days last year in which exploit code for a serious security hole was posted online before Mozilla shipped a patch to remedy the problem."
The Courts

Submission + - Florida election

Submitted by
C. Darryl Mattison
C. Darryl Mattison writes: "Judge rules no access to voting software source code. http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/02/HNflorid arejects_1.html?source=NLC-TB2007-01-02 I agree with Jennings that the need to verify the accuracy of the vote far outweighs the concern about the company's trade secrets, for which they could be compensated if no problems were found. It seems that would meet the concerns of both sides and strike a balance. But we're talking about Florida here..."
Education

Submission + - The new interpretation to Einstein's theory

Submitted by
Georgius
Georgius writes: "The new interpretation to causal essence of Gravity and Einstein's general theory of relativity (GTR) are offered. There are shown that the "Space-time", introduced by Minkovsky and Einstein, it's a false physical reality only. The studied gravity events actually are conditioned with the unknown property of substance, but not with the mysterious " Space-time" as it's presented in GTR. The author's conclusions mostly confirm quantitative results of Einstein's theory. However, the negative results are predicted for ongoing and planning great experiments to registration of "gravitational waves" and on detection the "curvature of a space-time" (Gravity Probe-B, LIGO, LISA.) https://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp ?bookid=33659"
Announcements

Submission + - Researchers create selfish BitTorrent client

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers from the computer science department at the University of Washington have released BitTyrant, a new BitTorrent client that is designed to improve download performance via strategic selection of peers and upload rates. Their results call into question the effectiveness of BitTorrent's tit-for-tat reciprocation strategy which was designed to discourage selfish users. BitTyrant clients are available for Windows, OS X, and Linux.

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