Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Privacy

Submission + - Japan to fingerprint all foreign visitors (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by azuredrake
azuredrake writes: According to the BBC, Japan's government is planning to fingerprint and photograph all visiting foreigners beginning on November 20th of this year. As support for the controversial programs, the country's justice minister has said "a friend of a friend" was a member of al-Qaeda who had visited the country illegally several times and had been involved in one of the bombings in Bali. While this seems more like political suicide than a convincing argument to violate the privacy of all visiting foreigners, the program itself is interesting. If it succeeds, other countries would surely follow suit, leading to a vast national database of fingerprints and photographs of travelers.
Censorship

Submission + - Poll Finds Support for Internet Regulation (techliberation.com) 1

Submitted by Brian Gordon
Brian Gordon writes: Digital rights activist Adam Thierer has a blog post giving his insights on a recent poll from 463 Communications finding that more than half of Americans believe that Internet content such as video should be controlled in some way by the government. From the poll, "Twenty-nine percent said it should be regulated just like television content while 24% said government should institute an online rating system similar to the one used by the movie industry. In contrast, only 36% said the blocking of Internet video would be unconstitutional."
Privacy

Submission + - Found Adulterous Material On Bosses Machine 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Help me out slashdot: I took my bosses machine to my work bench to repair it. Little did I know that he left a cdrom from a "Glamour Erotic Potography" studio. I.E. erotic pictures someone took for somebody else, (Not comercial PRON). I did not open the cd, but explorer listed the title.. the name of a female ex employee (He is married)! Not sure what to do now. He does not know I have the machine, his secretary does. However,he knows I was working on it, just not that i took it. So do I play dumb? Tell him that he left a bit something and try to play it off? Hand him the disk and remind him that IT guys are like preists?!! Come slashdot, be my conciense!
Math

Submission + - What's the best way to teach myself math? 4

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: I have a secret. In high school I failed two out of three years of math classes and eventually dropped out of school completely. Although dropping out was the most foolish thing I have ever done, I am not dumb. I earned my general equivalency diploma as soon as was legally possible and from there went on to college and beyond. That was many years ago and my most basic algebra, trigonometry, and geometry skills are slipping away at an alarming rate. I'm looking for a self-guided course covering the equivalent of 4 years of high school mathematics including calculus. My math skills are holding me back. How can I turn this around?
Patents

Submission + - Redhat sued for Patent Infringement

Submitted by
tqft
tqft writes: "http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071011205044141
"The first ever patent infringement litigation regarding Linux. Here's the patent, for those who can look at it without risk. If in doubt, don't. "
For those who can without fear read a patent:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=3tUkAAAAEBAJ&dq=5,072,412

http://www.setexasrecord.com/news/202417-recent-copyrightpatent-infringement-cases-filed-in-u.s.-district-courts

"Plaintiffs IP Innovation and Technology Licensing Corp. claim to have the rights to U.S. Patent No. 5,072,412 for a User Interface with Multiple Workspaces for Sharing Display System Objects issued Dec. 10, 1991 along with two other similar patents.
"

Get your game faces on. Party Time."
Space

Submission + - Hillary Clinton Declares War on Space Exploration (associatedcontent.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "Recently, Senator Hillary Clinton revealed her science agenda. Of great interest to people involved in making and debating space policy were the three bullets concerning the space program. To be brief and to the point, Hillary's agenda would be terrible news for anyone who supports space exploration and space commerce."
The Courts

Submission + - Possession of the Anarchist's Cookbook==Terrorist

Submitted by Anonymous Terrorist
Anonymous Terrorist writes: Back in the midsts of time, when I was a lad and gopher was the height of information retrieval I read The Anarchist's Cookbook in one huge text file. Now it appears the UK government considers possession of the book an offence under the Terrorism Act 2000 and is prosecuting a 17 year old boy, in part, for having a copy of the book.
Movies

Submission + - Do Content Provider Executives Read Online Forums? (networkhardware.com)

Submitted by
Dax
Dax writes: "I've been reading slashdot for nearly a decade now, and I've found it both useful and occasionally comical in many areas of life (especially when I implemented the Win2k ban on UCSB's ResNet...the /. comments made for hilarious reading that week). Throughout college and my career, I've relied on online forums such as these for feedback, and to get a vague sense of how it is for folks "in the trenches", so to speak.

Given the hundreds — if not thousands — of submissions to slashdot, digg, techdirt, et al regarding DRM and all of its catastrophic failures (let's use Blu-Ray and HD-DVD as the main example), do the decision makers and visionaries at these companies put any stock into the horribly negative feedback all over the web concerning these topics?

If so, why haven't we (consumers) seen shifts away from defective by design technologies? If not, why not? In my current position, I sell Cisco equipment...and my reputation can be made or slayed by what goes on in these forums, so I keep a serious eye open to constructive criticisms, or (hopefully more often), positive feedback. Why don't other executives?"
Security

Submission + - iPhone Security Hellhole? (eweek.com) 1

Submitted by
TheAncientHacker
TheAncientHacker writes: "eWeek reports that not only is the iPhone's root password compromised, not only was the password a simple six character lower case word, but the entire freakin' system — all apps and utils and tools from the calculator to the kernel — run as root."
Toys

Submission + - Preorders open for 230MPG car (treehugger.com) 4

Submitted by m4ximusprim3
m4ximusprim3 writes: Aptera Automotive, maker of the Aptera 230mpg diesel hybrid is now taking $500 "pre orders" for the car, which is scheduled to go into production in 12 months.

The Vehicle seats two people side by side, gets 230mpg at 55mph, has a trunk large enough for a surfboard, and goes from 0-60 in less than 10 seconds.

And, it looks like a fish!
Linux Business

Submission + - OpenSource Revenue Model Flawed 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If the standard revenue model for OpenSource software is to charge for the support of the software, what incentive is there to produce truly reliable products? Obviously if the software worked perfectly and easily there would be little need for product support.
Competition alone is clearly not enough to ensure companies pursue perfection. As the current closed source market shows, consumers are more than happy to use buggy, poorly designed wares as long as its familiar and common place.
Mozilla

Submission + - Mozilla says Apple must fix Quicktime flaw

Submitted by
JavaJack
JavaJack writes: "Infoworld.com is reporting that even though Mozilla fixed "a critical bug in the way the Firefox browser works with QuickTime media files" which "gives attackers a way to run unauthorized commands on a victim's PC", Mozilla claims that the bug can't be fully fixed until Apple fixes Quicktime. From the article...

A July 2007 patch was supposed to take care of this type of problem, but [hacker Petko] Petkov showed how attackers could still run commands on a victim's system by tricking a victim into opening a maliciously coded QuickTime media file.
In fact, until Apple addresses the underlying flaw in QuickTime, there still could be headaches for users, Mozilla said in its security advisory on the issue. "QuickTime Media-link files could still be used to annoy users with popup windows and dialogs until this issue is fixed in QuickTime," the advisory states.
Mozilla's fix is included in Firefox 2.0.0.7.
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/09/18/Mozilla-fixes-QuickTime-flaw-in-Firefox_1.html?source=NLC-TB&cgd=2007-09-19"

Slashdot Top Deals

Suggest you just sit there and wait till life gets easier.

Close