dreddnott - Slashdot User

Submission + - Brain waves could be the next biometric

Submitted by galactic_grub on Monday January 22, 2007 @08:16PM

galactic_grub writes: NewScientistTech has a story about European researchers developing an EEG-based biometric security system. As a person's electroencephalography (EEG) patterns are defined by the unique pattern of their neural pathways, this could provide a hard-to-forge method of identification. The researchers behind it believe the system could prove useful for high-security access-control, although participants have to sit silently, with the eyes closed, in order to use it.

Submission + - Net neutrality never was - econ and tech review

Submitted by

Jennifer Manfre

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:53PM

Jennifer Manfre writes: "In the latest release of the Milken Institute Review, Bob Hahn and Bob Litan of the AEI-Brookings Joint Center examine the budding debate over "net neutrality" in hope of warding off innovation-dampening regulation in the name of fairness. "Policymakers should look at how the Internet really functions from technical and economic perspectives," they write. "If content providers are willing to pay for enhanced quality, there is no good reason for regulators to deter them." The Milken Institute Review is available online at www.milkeninstitute.org."

Submission + - Defense Witness in "Spyware in school" cas

Submitted by

boyko.at.netqos

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:34PM

boyko.at.netqos writes: "Network Performance Daily offered Mr. Herb Horner, the defense expert witness in the case of Julie Amero, the Connecticut substitute teacher convicted and awaiting sentence for what defense argues was a spyware infection, a chance to speak out on the case. (Tomorrow NPD hopes to have commentary from Detective Mark Lounsbury, who testified for the prosecution at Ms. Amero's trial.)
From the article: 'We asked the prosecution to arrange for the defense to have unfettered access to the internet so that we could reenact the events of October 19, 2004. It was not granted. I went to court with two laptops and a box full of reference material prepared to very clearly illustrate what happened to Julie Amero. But, the prosecution objected because they were not given "full disclosure" of my examination. I was allowed to illustrate two screens, that of the www.hair-styles.org [do not click], and www.new-hair-styles.com [do not click] sites. This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my career, knowing full well that the person is innocent and not being allowed to provide logical proof.'"

Submission + - google.de domain pirated??

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:29PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "hi folks. seems that some really smart guy managed to have the german domain 'guardian' denic.de to tranfer the google.de domain to himself.

Domain query on
http://www.denic.de/de/whois/data.jsp for google.de gives the following results (23/01/07, 00:26 )

Copyright DENIC eG
Domaindaten
Domain: google.de
Letzte Aktualisierung: 22.01.2007
Domaininhaber

Der Domaininhaber ist der Vertragspartner der DENIC und damit der an der Domain materiell Berechtigte.

Domaininhaber: Martin Rusteberg
Adresse: Hellmundstr. 31
PLZ: 65183
Ort: Wiesbaden
Land: DE
Administrativer Ansprechpartner, Technischer Ansprechpartner, Zonenverwalter

Der administrative Ansprechpartner (admin-c) ist die vom Domaininhaber benannte natürliche Person, die als sein Bevollmächtigter berechtigt und gegenüber DENIC auch verpflichtet ist, sämtliche die Domain google.de betreffenden Angelegenheiten verbindlich zu entscheiden.

Der technische Ansprechpartner (tech-c) betreut die Domain google.de in technischer Hinsicht.

Der Zonenverwalter (zone-c) betreut die Nameserver der Domain google.de.

Name: Mario Micklisch
Adresse: Hellmund Str. 31
PLZ: 65183
Ort: Wiesbaden
Land: DE
Telefon: +491717067046
Telefax: +49 12126 32863286
E-Mail: info@favo.org
Bemerkungen: ID #8614
Technische Daten
Nameserver: ns1.namesecure.de.
Nameserver: ns2.namesecure.de.

Might wanna check this out."

Submission + - Fight spam with Nolisting

Submitted by on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:23PM

An anonymous reader writes: "Nolisting fights spam by specifying a primary MX that is always unavailable.

"It has been observed that when a domain has both a primary (high priority, low number) and a secondary (low priority, high number) MX record configured in DNS, overall SMTP connections will decrease when the primary MX is unavailable. This decrease is unexpected because RFC 2821 (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) specifies that a client MUST try and retry each MX address in order, and SHOULD try at least two addresses. It turns out that nearly all violators of this specification exist for the purpose of sending spam or viruses. Nolisting takes advantage of this behaviour by configuring a domain's primary MX record to use an IP address that does not have an active service listening on SMTP port 25. RFC-compliant clients will retry delivery to the secondary MX, which is configured to serve the role normally performed by the primary MX (final delivery, transport rerouting, etc.)."

Submission + - Microsoft offering free Vista "test drive"

Submitted by

Aryabhata

on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:10PM

Aryabhata writes: "ArsTechnica reports that Microsoft recently unveiled a new web site called "Windows Vista Test Drive," designed to allow business users, consumers, and the merely curious to find out what running Microsoft's latest operating system might be like, without actually having to install it.
The web site requires Windows 2000 or XP, Internet Explorer 6 or 7, and Microsoft's Virtual Machine Remote Control (VMRC) Advanced ActiveX control."

FCC Nixes Satellite Radio Merger 277

Posted by kdawson on Monday January 22, 2007 @07:09PM from the Howard-meet-Oprah dept.

a_nonamiss writes "Doesn't look like Sirius and XM are going to merge any time soon. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Logically, I know that competition is a good thing for consumers, and monopolies are generally only good for companies. Still, I don't like having to choose a car based on which satellite radio service comes pre-installed, or considering whether I'd rather have Howard Stern or Oprah, because there is no practical way to get both. Frankly, it's probably all this exclusivity that has caused me not to purchase either system." From the article: "Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told reporters after an FCC meeting that the Commission would not approve a merger between satellite radio rivals Sirius and XM Radio... When the FCC initially licensed the two satellite radio companies in 1997, there was language in the licensing barring one from acquiring control of the other... Even if the FCC were to have a change of heart..., it would still have to pass antitrust scrutiny by the Department of Justice."

Submission + - Microsoft to host "secret" security meetin

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:56PM

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft will host a two-day security love-fest this Thursday and Friday at its Redmond campus. Among those scheduled to attend are reps from Symantec, Trend Micro and Websense, as well as folks from AOL, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and Qwest. Government and law enforcement expected to attend include the FBI, Secret Service and US-CERT. Topics of discussion will include Microsoft's response to zero-day flaws, new styles of denial-of-service attacks, spam, phishing and weaknesses in protection technologies such as sandboxes and virtual keyboards on banking sites.

Submission + - iTunes DRM called out by France and Germany

Submitted by

Aryabhata

on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:44PM

Aryabhata writes: "Apple is being challenged once again to open up its DRM by consumer groups in Europe. This time, Germany and France have joined the slowly-growing number of countries who are asking Apple to allow the protected songs purchased from the iTunes Store to be played on other music players besides the iPod."

Submission + - Scientits Say Don't Ignore Geothermal

Submitted by anthemaniac on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:23PM

anthemaniac writes: Geothermal energy is overlooked as a cost-effective and clean supply of energy and could be the source of 10 percent of our electricity needs by 2050, MIT researchers say. From the article: 'Unlike conventional power plants that burn coal, natural gas or oil, no fuel is required. And unlike solar power, a geothermal plant draws energy night and day.' Declining oil prices in the mid-80s slowed interest in geothermal, but it's time to take another look, the researchers say.

Submission + - Palm Pilot Hotsync on Windows Vista

Submitted by

duncan bayne

on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:23PM

duncan bayne writes: "It seems Palm isn't interested in supporting Vista on older devices: "... our development team has not provided any updates or feedback regarding ... support [for] Windows® Vista OS synchronization."

With some help from the good people at Palm Help Forums and PDA Street Forums, I've put together HOWTO: Palm Pilot / Handspring Visor HotSync under Vista. It works for me on Vista Beta 2, and others have verified it on Vista RTM. This should help satisfied Palm users wring many more years life out of their devices ... which presumably is why Palm haven't stepped up to the plate and provided Vista support themselves."

Submission + - Citizendium dumps WIkipedia

Submitted by twilight30 on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:18PM

twilight30 writes: Nicholas Carr reports that 'Larry Sanger has changed his mind about forking Wikipedia. As you'll recall, Sanger, who cofounded Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales, has been working on creating Citizendium, an expert-edited alternative to the motley online encyclopedia. The original plan was to "fork" Wikipedia — in other words, make a copy of Wikipedia's contents and then re-edit the articles to bring them up to snuff. The theory was that borrowing the existing articles would provide a jump-start for the fledgling knowledge base. But that hasn't worked so well. The handful of early contributors to Citizendium have, says Sanger, become "disheartened by the fact that their first obligation seems to be to edit mediocre Wikipedia articles."'

Pentium 4 631 Overclocked to 8 GHz 271

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:15PM from the smokin dept.

Andreas writes "There are always those who are willing to take things one step further than others. A group of guys known as OC Team Italy is one of them. They recently pushed an Intel Pentium 4 631 to over 8000MHz using an ASUS P5B with modified voltage regulation and liquid nitrogen. Overclocking is cool and all, but this extends beyond what some would perhaps call useful. Still a milestone though."

Submission + - Compiz forum mantainer hacks beryl's site

Submitted by paulpach on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:11PM

paulpach writes: Someone hacked beryl's servers. After being tracked down, the attacker confessed, and offered his resignation as the compiz forum mantainer. There is some detail in This month in beryl

I have let down both the compiz and beryl community and I apologize greatly for that and I will be stepping down as the compiz forum administrator. It is also important to note that my actions don't reflect the beliefs of the compiz project and are certainly not condoned by them. I hope compiz and beryl can work better together in future.

Submission + - The 5 Sins of Vista

Submitted by

Ant

on Monday January 22, 2007 @06:08PM

Ant writes: "An IntelliAdmin blog on five reasons why Windows Vista is a step backward from previous versions of Windows. The author believes it is a step back in the usability department. Seen on Digg."

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