Comment Re:What other products (Score 1) 1019
If I give a kid 50 cents, so that he can put it in a soda machine and get a can of soda, then did he pay for the soda?
Submission + - Does Creative Commons work with Pseudonymity?
kale77in writes: This is a legal question for Ask Slashdot; I was going to direct it to the Australian Arts Law Centre, and probably still will, but I'm sure they're very busy and I'm sure that someone here must have bumped up against this issue already. I have not found it addressed in the CC FAQ.
Scenario: I have a website which is oriented around the study of Ancient Greek. Much material relevant to this study (texts, lexica, etc) was published in the 1800s; it is now out of copyright and readily available from archive.org and similar sources; but much of this material could use an upgrade and users will have up-to-date contributions of their own to make. I'm writing a system that allows user entry, correcting, searching, commentary, tagging, redistribution and so on, of such material.
Here's my issue: I would like everything to be under Creative Commons BY-SA — I can say "same as Wikipedia" and this will encourage participation and confidence. The question is who should own the copyright of user-created data. I'd like the copyright to be held by the submitter. But I've no interest in enforcing anything more than pseudonymity for the users. Now I understand that copyrights can be held pseudonymously; but how does this allow attribution as required by CC-BY-SA? Is it enough for an author of a derivative work to reference the page on my site where the pseudonymous copyright holder grants the license? Does the end user need to be able to contact the copyright holder for additional rights? Is this a road through a minefield, so that I should just bite the bullet and, like Wikipedia, make a foundation to hold and license the copyright for collaborative works? But that costs money to administer; for a small non-profit venture is it best to just chill and take resort in persuading the users to make everything public domain? Or does a special User Agreement allow some way to gain the benefits of CC licensing (= endless reuse, and no hassle) without losing pseudonymity? But then, won't a complex upfront agreement hinder participation?
Scenario: I have a website which is oriented around the study of Ancient Greek. Much material relevant to this study (texts, lexica, etc) was published in the 1800s; it is now out of copyright and readily available from archive.org and similar sources; but much of this material could use an upgrade and users will have up-to-date contributions of their own to make. I'm writing a system that allows user entry, correcting, searching, commentary, tagging, redistribution and so on, of such material.
Here's my issue: I would like everything to be under Creative Commons BY-SA — I can say "same as Wikipedia" and this will encourage participation and confidence. The question is who should own the copyright of user-created data. I'd like the copyright to be held by the submitter. But I've no interest in enforcing anything more than pseudonymity for the users. Now I understand that copyrights can be held pseudonymously; but how does this allow attribution as required by CC-BY-SA? Is it enough for an author of a derivative work to reference the page on my site where the pseudonymous copyright holder grants the license? Does the end user need to be able to contact the copyright holder for additional rights? Is this a road through a minefield, so that I should just bite the bullet and, like Wikipedia, make a foundation to hold and license the copyright for collaborative works? But that costs money to administer; for a small non-profit venture is it best to just chill and take resort in persuading the users to make everything public domain? Or does a special User Agreement allow some way to gain the benefits of CC licensing (= endless reuse, and no hassle) without losing pseudonymity? But then, won't a complex upfront agreement hinder participation?
Submission + - How Japan's Data Centers Survived The Earthquake (itworld.com)
jfruhlinger writes: "A lot of Japan's infrastructure was knocked offline by this year's massive earthquake and tsunami, but its data centers by and large stayed running. How'd they pull it off? Good architecture and good planning, for the most part. But the data centers still face challenges in post-quake Japan, not least a new law mandating reductions in power use."
Submission + - PlayStation 3 Banned In Europe Temporarily (tekgoblin.com)
tekgoblin writes: "Looks like Sony is in some trouble at least in Europe. LG had recently sued Sony with a Patent dispute over their blu-ray technology and have been granted a preliminary injunction in the matter. This injunction prevents the PlayStation 3 from currently being imported to Europe. For at least the next 10 days, every PlayStation that is imported will be seized by Government officials."
Submission + - Betty Boop and Indefinite Copyright (cartoonbrew.com)
An anonymous reader writes: US Court of Appeals officially recognizes that under the current regime, characters like Betty Boopy "would essentially never enter the public domain".
"Apparently the Fleischer estate has lost a court battle for the rights to Betty Boop, a character created by Grim Natwick at Max Fleischer’s studio in 1930."
"The Fleischer Studio tried to sue Avela Inc. over its licensing of public domain Betty Boop poster images (for handbags and T-shirts). The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (based in San Francisco) ruled against the Fleischers, saying in their decision, “If we ruled that AVELA’s depictions of Betty Boop infringed Fleischer’s trademarks, the Betty Boop character would essentially never enter the public domain.”"
"So where does that leave Ms. Boop? No longer represented by the heirs of Max Fleischer and King Features Syndicate? Does this make Harvey Comics – or by extention, its current owner Classic Media – the owner of the property? Or is the character now in public domain."
"Apparently the Fleischer estate has lost a court battle for the rights to Betty Boop, a character created by Grim Natwick at Max Fleischer’s studio in 1930."
"The Fleischer Studio tried to sue Avela Inc. over its licensing of public domain Betty Boop poster images (for handbags and T-shirts). The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (based in San Francisco) ruled against the Fleischers, saying in their decision, “If we ruled that AVELA’s depictions of Betty Boop infringed Fleischer’s trademarks, the Betty Boop character would essentially never enter the public domain.”"
"So where does that leave Ms. Boop? No longer represented by the heirs of Max Fleischer and King Features Syndicate? Does this make Harvey Comics – or by extention, its current owner Classic Media – the owner of the property? Or is the character now in public domain."
Submission + - FDA approves first app for diagnostic use (cnet.com)
another similar writes: After winning the 2008 Apple design award for best healthcare/fitness app, Mobile MIM — an app allowing healthcare providers to view images (X-ray, CT, PET, etc.) for diagnostic use — became the first iPhone/iPad app to obtain FDA approval. The app has been available in 14 (primarily EU) countries for some time, but was prevented from being used in the US until FDA approval could be secured.
The primary issue centered around whether variations in image contrast due to component variation or environmental lighting could potentially cause inappropriate diagnoses. MIM overcame this by providing a screen contrast test. From the article:
"To test quality, each image includes a small section that is a slightly different shade than the rest; identify and tap on that section and image quality is confirmed as sufficient for discerning subtle contrast differences."
The primary issue centered around whether variations in image contrast due to component variation or environmental lighting could potentially cause inappropriate diagnoses. MIM overcame this by providing a screen contrast test. From the article:
"To test quality, each image includes a small section that is a slightly different shade than the rest; identify and tap on that section and image quality is confirmed as sufficient for discerning subtle contrast differences."
Comment Re:You don't have to be non-random for fixed winne (Score 1) 374
I think the issue is that there is in a lot of these tickets there is visible data and hidden data and you win if they match up somehow. Apparently for a lot of these tickets, the process used to generate the tickets is biased in that certain visible data was highly correlated with a ticket being a winner. This is not surprising, as generating random sequences of anything is hard, and I would imagine it is even harder when you want a random sequence of pairs (visible data and hidden data) that meet certain conditions with a given probability distribution so that the correlation of (any type of visible data pattern) to (any type of hidden data pattern) is tiny. The surprising bit in the specific case in the article is that the visible data pattern giving the high correlation, the presence of singletons, was relatively easy to spot.
Submission + - Statistician Cracks Code for Lottery Tickets (lotterypost.com)
Hugh Pickens writes writes: Lottery Post has an interesting story about Mohan Srivastava, an MIT educated statistician who became intrigued by a particular type of scratch-off lottery ticket called an extended-play game — sometimes referred to as a baited hook — that has a tic-tac-toe grid of visible numbers that looks like a miniature spreadsheet. Srivastava discovered a defect in the game: The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating. Nothing needed to be scratched off — the ticket could be cracked if you figured out the secret code. Srivastava's fundamental insight was that the apparent randomness of the scratch ticket was just a facade, a mathematical lie because the software that generates the tickets has to precisely control the number of winners while still appearing random. "It wasn't that hard," says Srivastava. "I do the same kind of math all day long."
Submission + - Flickr permanently deletes paying users's account (posterous.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Photographer Mirco Wilhelm claims photosharing website Flickr accidentally deleted his paid account of over 4,000 photographs without warning and has no means to restore the lost information. While his account has been reactivated, it is "an empty shell of what I did during the last 5 years".
This story has been picked up by the blogosphere, Huffingtonpost, and New York Observer.
This story has been picked up by the blogosphere, Huffingtonpost, and New York Observer.
Comment Re:Maybe, Maybe not (Score 1) 491
Pretty sure there's something in there about being able to modify software on the ps3 to improve Service.
What you failed to notice is 'Butt fuckery service, written "Service", is the fuckery of users buttocks.' in the definitions bit around page 347. Pretty sure this is boilerplate legalese. Of course, this is only possible because of the strike down of sodomy laws a few years ago.
Be careful what you wish for.
Be careful what you wish for.
Submission + - Government Interception Attacks via SSL (cloudprivacy.net)
AHuxley writes: cloudprivacy.net has an open letter to Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt about ssl usage. The six page letter signed by 38 researchers and academics supports HTTPS encryption by default. Google Voice, Health, AdSense and Adword all have HTTPS on and it is hoped all of Googles products can offer users the same protection soon.
A hosted paper by Christopher Soghoian and Sid Stamm proves insight into a certificate creation attack, in which government agencies may compel a certificate authority to issue false SSL certificates that can be used by intelligence agencies to covertly intercept and
hijack individuals’ secure Web-based communications.
A hosted paper by Christopher Soghoian and Sid Stamm proves insight into a certificate creation attack, in which government agencies may compel a certificate authority to issue false SSL certificates that can be used by intelligence agencies to covertly intercept and
hijack individuals’ secure Web-based communications.
Comment Re:seems simple (Score 1) 1219
You are not denied use of the roads or highways if you don't have a driver's license; you can operate any number of nonmotorized vehicles. You are not even denied the ability to travel by motor vehicle. You are only denied the privilege of operating a large deadly machine in a public space.
Comment Re:Hi Janet Napolitano (Score 1) 890
The 82% poll was asked in a generic way of people who hadn't been keeping up with the latest and greatest methods of the TSA. Without being educated of the nature of the scan most people would not assume the picture would be essentially a nude of you. The poll also neglected to mention that any kind of abnormality on the scan resulting from folds in clothing or prosthetics or underwire bra or glitch would result in sexual assault, and if anything there seems odd to the flunkie groping you then you get to remove your shirt and/or pants. I should do a poll and ask if people thought this process was justified and see how many people say yes.
Submission + - Utah Vs. NASA On Heavy-Lift Rocket Design (spacepolitics.com)
FleaPlus writes: Utah congressmen Orrin Hatch, Bob Bennett, Rob Bishop, and Jim Matheson issued a statement claiming that NASA's design process for a new congressionally-mandated heavy-lift rocket system may be trying to circumvent the law. According to the congressmen and their advisors from solid rocket producer ATK, the heavy-lift legislation's requirements can only be met by rockets utilizing ATK's solid rocket boosters. They are alarmed that NASA is also considering other approaches, such as all-liquid designs based on the rockets operated by the United Launch Alliance and SpaceX. ATK's solid rockets were arguably responsible for many of the safety and cost problems which plagued NASA's canceled Ares rocket system.
Submission + - Hacker arrested after cracking Federal Reserve (federalnewsradio.com)
PatPending writes: Eastern District of New York Press Release
Defendant's Criminal Activities Extended to the National Security Sector
A four-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn today charging Lin Mun Poo, a resident and citizen of Malaysia, with hacking into a computer network of the Federal Reserve Bank and possessing more than 400,000 stolen credit and debit card numbers.1 The defendant was arrested on a criminal complaint shortly after his arrival in the United States on October 21, 2010, and has been held in custody since then. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge Dora L. Irizarry.
Defendant's Criminal Activities Extended to the National Security Sector
A four-count indictment was returned by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn today charging Lin Mun Poo, a resident and citizen of Malaysia, with hacking into a computer network of the Federal Reserve Bank and possessing more than 400,000 stolen credit and debit card numbers.1 The defendant was arrested on a criminal complaint shortly after his arrival in the United States on October 21, 2010, and has been held in custody since then. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge Dora L. Irizarry.
