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Music

Submission + - Record companies lose, artists gain (espen.com)

Submitted by mork
mork writes: A recent MSc thesis from two students at Norwegian School of Management show that after 10 years of digitalization of music, the average (Norwegian) musician's income has increased by 66%. As a group, the only losers in digital music seems to be the record companies. The musicians' income increase is due to increased income from concerts, various collection agencies and stipends from the government in the period from 1999 to 2009. During the same period, record sales have decreased by about 50%. The fall in income from record sales is less important for the musicians, however, since, on average, they only receive 15% of record sales, whereas they receive on average 50% from concerts and 80% from collection agencies (who collects provisions from radio play and other uses of the artists' productions.). The thesis also shows that the fall in record sales also means that record companies are becoming less important as launchpads for new artists, and that records to a larger degree become "business cards" — i.e., a marketing tool — to attract audiences to concerts.

Comment Auditing (Score 1) 209

by mork (#28207123) Attached to: Should Auditors Be Liable For Certifications?

Auditors check that the company have security policies, that they have proper procedures and that these have been followed in the past. There is obviously no guarantee that the employees in the company will continue to follow the security procedures, just because they have done so in the past. Security breaches usually occur because someone failed to follow procedure.

Security standards and audits give the company assurance that they have reduced the chance of security breaches as much as possible. However , you can NEVER certify any system as "secure".
Audits usually control access and change procedures for systems and verify that there are controls and procedures that have been followed up to that point in time.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IT_audit for more info.

Comment Focused accountants (Score 1) 369

by mork (#27723823) Attached to: Cosmetic Neurology

"... I'm a little concerned that we could be raising a generation of very focused accountants.'""

What about those of us that are already "focused accountants" what do we get out of this "Neuro Revolution"?
Space

Submission + - Countdown To NASA's Kepler Mission (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
Adam Korbitz
Adam Korbitz writes: "NASA's planet-hunting Kepler mission is set to launch late on the evening of March 6th. A few days ago the space telescope arrived in Florida for final launch preparations.

According to the NASA/JPL Planet Quest website:

NASA's Kepler spacecraft, scheduled to launch in March on a journey to search for other Earths, has arrived in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Kepler will hunt for planets using a specialized one-meter diameter telescope called a photometer to measure the small changes in brightness caused by the transits.

Over a four-year period, Kepler will continuously view an amount of sky about equal to the size of a human hand held at arm's length or about equal in area to two "scoops" of the sky made with the Big Dipper constellation.

A map of the area Kepler will search is shown above superimposed on a photograph of the constellation Cygnus, The Swan. More information on the Kepler Field of View can be found here.

NASA has posted a countdown clock for Kepler, as well as animations of the spacecraft mission and the science objectives.

"
United States

Lessig Decides Not to Run For Congress 80

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the jedis-are-going-to-feel-this-one dept.
micheas writes "Larry Lessig has decided that running for U.S. Congress himself in a special election would be too risky to his Change Congress movement and has decided not to run. 'With lots of mixed feelings, I have decided a run for Congress would not help the Change Congress movement. I explain the thinking in this 5 minute video (a new record for me!). First question: What happens to the contributions to Lessig08? As explained on the ActBlue page, all will go to (the yet to be established) Change Congress organization.'"
Security

Why Old SQL Worms Won't Die 64

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the looking-for-a-user-security-patch dept.
narramissic writes "In a recent ITworld article, Security researcher Brent Huston ponders how it is that versions of SQL worms dating back to 2002 represent nearly 70% of all malicious traffic on the Internet today. 'I have made a few attempts to backtrack hosts that perform the scans and at first blush many show the signs of common botnet infections. Most are not running exposed SQL themselves, so that means that the code has likely been implemented into many bot-net exploitation frameworks. Perhaps the bot masters have the idea that when they infiltrate a commercial network, the SQL exploits will be available and useful to them? My assessment team says this is pretty true. Even today, they find blank "sa" passwords and other age-old SQL issues inside major corporate clients. So perhaps, that is why these old exploits continue to thrive."
Patents

Judge Makes Lawyers Pay For Frivolous Patent Suit 263

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the not-making-partner-anytime-soon dept.
Gallenod writes "The Denver Post is reporting that the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of a Federal judge who threw out and reversed a jury decision in favor of a patent infringement claim and ordered the plaintiff's lawyers to pay the defendants' court costs. U.S. District Senior Judge Richard P. Matsch sanctioned the plaintiff's attorneys for 'cavalier and abusive' misconduct and for having a 'what can I get away with?' attitude during a 13-day patent infringement trial in Denver. With the Appeals Court in agreement, could this case be the 'shot heard round the world' in the revolution against patent trolls?"
Government

Submission + - Norwegian Government Goes Open Format

Submitted by
titten
titten writes: "The Norwegian government has decided that everybody should have equal access to official documents. All information on official websites must be HTML, ODF or PDF from 2009, with a transistion period running until the end of 2013. No English information so far, here's an article describing the new legislation in Norwegian. The Norwegian UNIX User Group just gave a press release on the subject. It's so fresh, they've yet to publish it in any other way than by email."
Music

Submission + - Even century old records had restrictive licensing (natch.net)

Submitted by
natch
natch writes: "While rummaging through some old records at an antique store I found some turn-of-the-century Victor Record Company pressings. The label on the back laid out the terms of use, something similar to an EULA. In today's modern world of RIAA lawsuits and DRM, it's interesting to note that similar tactics have been in use by record companies for over a century, restricting your right to use what you purchased. The label clearly states that unless the record was sold for at least one dollar, there is no license to use it."
Announcements

Submission + - UK gov't to protect data as formats grow obssolete

Submitted by
zakeria
zakeria writes: "As standards evolve, the UK government looks to ensure information remains accessible despite the rapid pace of technological change A project to look at options for setting up a shared service across government to protect the information will be led by the National Archives. The aim is that the service will migrate and preserve digital data for all government departments."
Security

Submission + - Venezuela's cyber civil war (akamai.com)

Submitted by sciarbus
sciarbus writes: Akamai's new-ish Flash Real Time Web Monitor page shows that for the last few days, and perhaps longer, Venezuela has been under sustained cyber-attack. Indeed, at 1000+ attacks/ day, Venezuela is currently sustaining more cyber-attacks than any other country in the world. It appears that there maybe the equivalent of a long-running cyber-civil war underway in Venezuela, as pro and anti-Government supporters attack each others online assets. Casualties to date include the Venezuelan Government Ombudsman's website, as well as the websites of the National Assembly and state-run Food Markets. After Estonia, do I sense a trend here?

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