Honken - Slashdot User

Submission + - Local whistleblower blog blocked in Argentina (google.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @03:40AM

An anonymous reader writes: Leakymails, a whistleblower blog that is posting email and documents from argentinean politicians, journalist and businessmen, has became the first website to be blocked in Argentina by the government (link in spanish)
The author is looking for help to distribute the leaked material.

Submission + - I'm declaring password bankruptcy

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @06:19AM

An anonymous reader writes: Once upon a time, composing passwords was as easy as saying open sesame. Not any more. Now web services all-too-often require users to beef up the security of their passwords by stipulating minimum length and numerals or just banning weak passwords (Hotmail is the latest example). But increasingly demanding password systems are themselves posing a security risk, argues this columnist as they don't take account of users' memory and storage limits. Forcing users to create more complex passwords just means users will crack under pressure — and read for the Post-It note.

Submission + - Intel Details Dynamic Resolution Rendering Tech (thinq.co.uk)

Submitted by Stoobalou on Tuesday July 19, 2011 @06:09AM

Stoobalou writes: Intel is risking the ire of hardcore gamers by suggesting that PC gaming can learn a trick or two from the world of consoles by altering a game's rendering resolution on the fly in order to boost performance.

Intel's latest chips, the Sandy Bridge series, pack some impressive graphical horsepower compared to the company's previous attempts, but still lag behind the performance of dedicated graphics from AMD or Nvidia. While that hasn't been a problem in the past — as there is a significant cost for an OEM to include discrete graphics with its product — AMD's move to the Fusion platform and the 'accelerated processing' concept threatens Intel's hold on the integrated graphics market.

Submission + - 40GB of data that costs the same as a house (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by

Barence

on Thursday June 30, 2011 @11:06AM

Barence writes: "PC Pro has an infographic that reveals the extortionate cost of roaming data. They compared the cost of data typically bundled with a fixed-line broadband package (40GB) costing £15, with the cost of buying that data on various mobile tariffs. Buying 40GB of data on a domestic mobile internet tariff from Orange would cost the same as an iMac; buying the same quantity of data on O2's non-Europe roaming tariff would cost £240,000 — or the same as a three-bedroom house."

Submission + - Best of the lot: My top 5 media players for Ubuntu (ubuntumanual.org)

Submitted by

tjavailable

on Wednesday June 29, 2011 @04:50AM

tjavailable writes: "Ubuntu is now one of the most popular Operating Systems used in the world. The main reason behind is the open source nature of Ubuntu and the backing provided by the vast online user community. Today Ubuntu ranks in 3rd in the list of top OS’s. The Open Source wizard supports a wide variety of software including media players. Today we review some of the best media software available for Ubuntu’s latest versions."

Comment Re:In other news... (Score 1) 5

by Honken on Wednesday June 29, 2011 @04:48AM (#36608538) Attached to: Climate sceptic funded by oil and coal companies

Al Gore has interest in several companies that stand to make him rich as Croesus if the legislature ever passes carbon cap and trade legislation. Can you say "conflict of interest"? Sure. I knew you could. If this story is news, then Gore's story is even bigger news.

And it indeed was news two years ago

Submission + - Climate sceptic funded by oil and coal companies (guardian.co.uk) 5

Submitted by Honken on Wednesday June 29, 2011 @04:14AM

Honken writes: The Guardian reports that "One of the world's most prominent scientific figures to be sceptical about climate change has admitted to being paid more than $1m in the past decade by major US oil and coal companies."

This somewhat contradicts that Soon in a 2003 US senate hearing said that he had "not knowingly been hired by, nor employed by, nor received grants from any organisation that had taken advocacy positions with respect to the Kyoto protocol or the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change."

Submission + - Plan to test Shakespeare remains for marijuana (foxnews.com) 1

Submitted by dutchwhizzman on Wednesday June 29, 2011 @01:00AM

dutchwhizzman writes: A team of scientists has submitted a formal request to test the remains of William Shakespeare for drugs. Notably, for marijuana, since remains of clay pipes found in his garden have been tested positive for four-twenty. If they get permission, we may have to adjust our view on his world famous plays quite substantially.

Submission + - Oracle shuts older servers out of Solaris 11 (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by PCM2 on Tuesday June 28, 2011 @08:36PM

PCM2 writes: The Register is reporting that Oracle has decided not to allow Solaris 11 to install on older Sparc hardware, including UltraSparc-I, UltraSparc-II, UltraSparc-IIe, UltraSparc-III, UltraSparc-III+, UltraSparc-IIIi, UltraSparc-IV, and UltraSparc-IV+ processors. The Solaris 11 Express development version released in November did not have this restriction, which suggests that the OS would likely run on these models. Unfortunately, the installer won't. All generations of Sparc T series processors and Sparc Enterprise M machines will be able to install and run Solaris 11, however.

Submission + - Dark side of making L.A. Noir (ign.com)

Submitted by JameskPratt on Tuesday June 28, 2011 @06:28PM

JameskPratt writes: Many readers have no delusions of how awful the video game industry treats its workers. Eleven ex-employee of Team Bondi's, who made LA Noir, have cited working 60 to 110 hours a weeks. And claim their boss, Brendan McNamara, crushed office morale with verbal abuse and unreasonable goals. As the saying goes, the two things you don't want to see being made is law and video games."

Submission + - The Lesson of LulzSec (itworld.com)

Submitted by

itwbennett

on Monday June 27, 2011 @04:22PM

itwbennett writes: "LulzSec says they're retired, which may or may not be true. But one thing the world has learned from their 'frightening yet funny' escapades is that 'the state of online security stinks,' writes blogger Tom Henderson. LulzSec (and Anonymous) have 'demonstrated that an awful lot of people are either asleep at the switch or believed in arcane security methods like security through obscurity.'"

Submission + - Researchers Design Memory-Strengthening Implant (nytimes.com)

Submitted by

Antipater

on Friday June 17, 2011 @04:08PM

Antipater writes: "Researchers at Wake Forest University have created a brain implant that can imitate signals through the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory retention. Rats implanted with the device were able to remember information even after their hippocampus was shut down, reports the New York Times. Though still in its infancy, this technology could hopefully be used to help treat dementia or stroke victims."

Submission + - What Google's Aging Tech Says About App Engine (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Friday June 17, 2011 @03:16PM

snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Savio Rodrigues questions whether an enterprise-class version of Google App Engine will ever prove reliable in light of recent comments by an ex-Google Wave engineer about Google's development priorities and aging technology. 'In the case of Google App Engine, a key question to ask is how your enterprise needs will be prioritized against the needs of internal Google developers. Although both user groups will share a set of feature requests, there are undoubtedly features that enterprises will seek but Google developers will not need. With both user groups vying for the next feature on their wish list to be completed, will Google address the needs of its internal developers or of outside enterprises? Keep in mind that revenue from projects that internal developers are working on will far outweigh revenue from outside enterprises through Google App Engine for the foreseeable future.'"

Submission + - Online poker legalization bill coming next week (thehill.com)

Submitted by GovTechGuy on Friday June 17, 2011 @01:59PM

GovTechGuy writes: Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) could introduce his bill to legalize online poker as soon as next week. The bill would legalize the game in all 50 states but sites could only be set up in states where gambling is already legal, so they can be licensed through existing gaming commissions. States could choose to opt-out of the law and ban online poker by referendum or a vote of the state legislature. The bill would also create a federal regulatory body to oversee the game.

Submission + - trend micro constantly 'sampling' your files (self_reporting_no_url.com) 1

Submitted by stenn on Tuesday June 07, 2011 @05:10PM

stenn writes: software: trend micro titanium internet security
os: windows 7 (yes yes, i know...)
situation:
the issue started while i was 'tail -f' the access_log on a server i'm working with. my system has a simple website and a standalone app that will hit the server via url with a handful of parameters for settings, one of those being a guid.

the problem:
i started noticing log entries for urls coming from the client app, with my guid, but not coming from my ip address. additionally, it was only the requests coming from the client app, not those starting in the browser. the duped requests would come from multiple ip addresses, all starting with 150.70.xx.xx. obviously, this is concerning. i am not going through any cloud services or using any proxies. i traced the ip addresses (ie: 150.70.172.106, 150.70.64.195, 150.70.75.33, etc) and they all pointed to Trend Micro Inc. i do have trend micro installed for anti-virus software, and as far as i could tell.. it was working fine and fairly lightweight. any reporting or proxy settings i have turned off. so i made a call.

after bouncing through a few people, i ended up with a guy trying to explain that they are trying to insure the 'web reputation' of the sites i was visiting. if that were the case, i pointed out, then you would echo the url calls originating from my browser. i can update my browser page and see it in the access_log immediately. no echoes. but when i issue urls from the stand alone client, i see an echo within 90 seconds.

it gets worse:
at this point he said he was going to need to see the screen to confirm what i'm seeing (?!). i asked how he'd do that, he said he'd take a screenshot and it would be sent to his machine (?!). i asked how and he said their software would do it if i allowed him to. obviously, i wasn't happy. that shouldn't even be an option. he backed away from this quickly.

the other shoe:
after another chorus of 'why the hell are you sending my internet traffic to your servers', he said trendmicro routinely samples files on the system and sends them to their malware experts for analysis (?!). he explained that they randomly sample from those files that have changed... bundling them up... and sending them to their servers every 3 hours. he tried to assure me that no 'sensitive' information was being sent from my machine (suuure...), just some random samples so the 'malware experts' can look for malware.

ip theft:
being a software developer, i write code that is copyrighted, at least by me, as i create it. for them to be 'sampling' the files that have changed essentially has them stealing my source code so their 'malware experts' can look through them. yes, i know... that's a lot of files and they aren't watching *my* files... but my name is on the trend micro license. if they wanted to, they could monitor one person's files without an issue.

i might be having a small cow over this issue, but i don't think it's unwarranted. it sure seems like spyware to me. if not, i'd love to know the difference, besides incorporation papers and a phone number.

thoughts?

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