Techmeology - Slashdot User

Submission + - The Pirate Bay Back After 2 Days (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Thursday October 04, 2012 @05:27PM

Techmeology writes: "Having been down for two days — leading to speculation that they had been targetted in a raid on the company it used to be hosted with, PRQ — The Pirate Bay has returned to the Internet. The cause of the down time was a broken Power Distribution Unit that had to be replaced."

Submission + - UK Ministers' Private Communications Subject to Freedom of Information Act (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Sunday September 30, 2012 @09:45AM

Techmeology writes: "Emails and texts sent from UK ministers' private accounts could be subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which means copies could be requested by members of the public. New guidelines to be released by the government say that the key factor is "the nature of the information and not the format". This development comes amid a two year dispute caused when a newspaper used the act to obtain and publish an email sent from the education minister's private email address."

Submission + - Megaupload To Return To The Internet (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Tuesday September 25, 2012 @08:16PM

Techmeology writes: "Kim Dotcom is working on a new incarnation of Megaupload, and has announced that the code for it is "90% done". Although the criminal case against the original site is still ongoing, Dotcom has secured support from investors. The new services is touted to be better than the original, with applications ranging beyond filesharing."

Submission + - EU Court Asked To Rule On Private Copying (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Tuesday September 25, 2012 @08:03PM

Techmeology writes: "The Dutch Supreme Court has asked the European Courte of Justice to decide whether downloading copyrighted material for personal use — even from illegal sources — is legal. At the heart of the debate is whether the European Copyright Directive requires that any new legal copy of material must have originated from a copy that is itself legal. The case tests the law in the Netherlands, where copyright holders are granted a levy on blank media in exchange for the legalisation of private copying."

Submission + - UK's IPv4 stocks not for sale (itnews.com.au)

Submitted by jimboh2k on Tuesday September 18, 2012 @06:13PM

jimboh2k writes: The UK may have 16.9 million 'unused' IPv4 addresses but according to the department that owns them, they're not for sale. The Department of Work and Pensions says it would be too expensive to reallocate those addresses and, even if it did, it would not stave off IPv4 address exhaustion by much.

Submission + - UK Piracy Insight By New Study (bbc.com)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Monday September 17, 2012 @01:25PM

Techmeology writes: "The UK has been named in a new study as the second most pirating nation by number of downloads, behind the US — despite the much smaller population. In the study, Musicmetric investigated the illegal download of music by monitoring BitTorrent traffic worldwide. It is estimated that 345 million tracks were downloaded, compared to 240 million legally purchased."

Comment Oops (Score 1) 1

by Techmeology on Sunday September 16, 2012 @07:02PM (#41356883) Attached to: Pirate Bay Founder Suspected of Cracking

Misread the first link; this is duplicate. Oh well:p

Submission + - Pirate Bay Founder Suspected of Cracking (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Sunday September 16, 2012 @06:38PM

Techmeology writes: "Having been arrested in and now deported from Cambodia, Gottfrid Svartholm is being detained in Sweden under suspicion of gaining access to computer systems belonging to Logica that are connected with Sweden's tax system. Nacka District Court has ruled that Svartholm, who denies the charges, may be detained for a further two weeks pending an investigation into the incident."

Submission + - Detailed Images Show Intra-Molecular Bonds (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Friday September 14, 2012 @07:35PM

Techmeology writes: "A team from IBM in Zurich has published images of molecules that are detailed enough to show the lengths of atomic bonds. This allows an analysis of imperfections in the molecular structure. The team plan to use the method to examine molecules of graphene."

Submission + - Europe Rationing Last IPv4 Address Block (bbc.com)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Friday September 14, 2012 @06:49PM

Techmeology writes: "As IPv4 exhaustion draws ever nearer, European ISPs are now unable to acquire more than a handful (1024) of new IPv4 addresses. The measures are being brought in to ration the last /8 available to RIPE NCC, with 400,000 address previously being allocated every day. In addition to the limit, organizations applying for IPv4 addresses will be required to demonstrate that they are deploying IPv6."

Submission + - Police could start blocking phone cameras based on GPS (rt.com)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Thursday September 13, 2012 @08:45PM

Techmeology writes: "Apple has patented a means to transmit commands to mobile devices to disable their cameras if the device is located within a "geofenced" — or specified range of locations. It says that cameras would usually only be disabled around places such as performance venues, however it admits the technology could also be used by authorities which may require "complete blackout conditions". This has lead many to wonder if this technology might be used to censor politically sensitive events such as demonstrations — amateur footage of which we are now used to seeing in the news."

Submission + - BMW Cars Vulnerable to Blank Key Attack (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by

Techmeology

on Thursday September 13, 2012 @09:34AM

Techmeology writes: "Thieves have discovered how to steal BMW cars produced since 2006 by using the onboard computer that is able to program blank keys. The device used — originally intended for use by garages — is able to reprogram the key to start the engine in around three minutes. The blank keys, and reprogramming devices, have made their way onto the black market and are available for purchase over the Internet."

Submission + - The Case Against DNA

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Friday August 31, 2012 @11:10AM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Thanks to fast-paced television crime shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, we have come to regard DNA evidence as uncontestable. But BBC reports that David Butler has every right to be cynical about the use of DNA evidence by the police. Butler spent eight months in prison, on remand, facing murder charges after his DNA was allegedly found on the victim. ""I think in the current climate [DNA] has made police lazy," says Butler. "It doesn't matter how many times someone like me writes to them, imploring they look at the evidence... they put every hope they had in the DNA result."" The police had accused Butler of murdering a woman, Anne Marie Foy, in 2005 — his DNA sample was on record after he had willingly given it to them as part of an investigation into a burglary at his mother's home some years earlier. But Butler has a rare skin condition, which means he sheds flakes of skin, leaving behind much larger traces of DNA than the average person and Butler worked as a taxi driver, and so it was possible for his DNA to be transferred from his taxi via money or another person, onto the murder victim. The case eventually went to trial and Butler was acquitted after CCTV evidence allegedly placing Butler in the area where the murder took place was disproved. Professor Allan Jamieson, head of the Glasgow-based Forensic Institute, has become a familiar thorn in the side of prosecutors seeking to rely on DNA evidence and has appeared as an expert witness for the defense in several important DNA-centered trials, most notably that of Sean Hoey, who was cleared of carrying out the 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 people. Jamieson’s main concern about the growing use of DNA in court cases is that a number of important factors -human error, contamination, simple accident — can suggest guilt where there is none. “Does anyone realize how easy it is to leave a couple of cells of your DNA somewhere?” says Jamieson. “You could shake my hand and I could put that hand down hundreds of miles away and leave your cells behind. In many cases, the question is not ‘Is it my DNA?’, but ‘How did it get there?’”"

Comment That guy... (Score 0) 107

by Techmeology on Thursday August 30, 2012 @08:34PM (#41185483) Attached to: Message In Bottle Found After 98 Years Near Shetland

That guy likes setting that record:p

Comment Why not? (Score 1) 2

by Techmeology on Thursday August 30, 2012 @07:44PM (#41185195) Attached to: If Extinct Species Can be Brought Back... Should We?

There are plenty of people who get irate at the notion of allowing human activity to result in the extinction of a species. Surely resurrecting such a species is merely an effort to undo the damage caused? As for species that died out naturally, well again - why not? So long as we're wise enough not to introduce a new predator into an ecosystem, or such like.

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