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The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker 637

Posted by timothy from the well-deserved-shadenfreude dept.
eldavojohn writes "You might remember the tiny news that Half Life 2 source code was leaked in 2003 ... it is the 6th most visited Slashdot story with over one kilocomment. Well, did anything happen to the source of the leak, the German hacker Axel 'Ago' Gembe? Wired is reporting he was offered a job interview so that Valve could get him into the US and bag him for charges. It's not the first time the FBI tried this trick: 'The same Seattle FBI office had successfully used an identical gambit in 2001, when they created a fake startup company called Invita, and lured two known Russian hackers to the US for a job interview, where they were arrested.'"
The Courts

$125 Million Settlement In Authors Guild v. Google 238

Posted by timothy from the something-had-to-give dept.
James Gleick writes "Authors, publishers, and Google are announcing a huge settlement deal today in their lawsuits over the scanning of millions of copyrighted books in library collections. Google has agreed to a huge payout for books that were scanned without permission, but now they'll be allowed to scan the books legitimately. Most important, they'll be able to put millions of books online, including those still in copyright — not just for searching and not just in snippets. There is a groundbreaking new licensing system meant to make the books as widely available as possible while protecting the authors' copyrights and enabling them to share in the revenue. Some will differ, but personally I think this is a wonderful outcome, for readers and for authors alike."
The Internet

Kazaa Founder Wants Us To Find "Legitimate" Files 75

Posted by timothy from the how-very-thoughtful-to-take-notice dept.
Just because I'm an writes "The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Kevin Bermeister and Michael Speck have been developing technology to return search results on file sharing programs that point to pay-for content from the copyright holders. The article reports that there are trials planned for Australian ISPs, with interest from elsewhere on the globe."
It's funny. Laugh.

The Greatest Scientific Hoaxes? 496

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the april-fools-one-of-the-best-holidays dept.
Ponca City, We love you writes "The New Scientist has an amusing story about the seven greatest scientific hoaxes of all time. Of course, there have been serious cases of scientific fraud, such as the stem cell researchers recently found guilty of falsifying data, and the South Korean cloning fraud, but the hoaxes selected point more to human gullibility than malevolence and include the Piltdown Man (constructed from a medieval human cranium); a ten-foot "petrified man" dug up on a small farm in Cardiff; fossils 'found' in Wurzburg, Germany depicting comets, moons and suns, Alan Sokal's paper loaded with nonsensical jargon that was accepted by the journal Social Text; the claim of the Upas tree on the island of Java so poisonous that it killed everything within a 15-mile radius; and Johann Heinrich Cohausen's claim of an elixir produced by collecting the breath of young women in bottles that produced immortality. Our favorite: BBC's broadcast in 1957 about the spaghetti tree in Switzerland that showed a family harvesting pasta that hung from the branches of the tree. After watching the program, hundreds of people phoned in asking how they could grow their own tree but, alas, the program turned out to be an April Fools' Day joke." What massive scientific hoaxes/jokes have other people witnessed?
Medicine

Scientists Erase Specific Memories In Mice 320

Posted by samzenpus from the where's-the-cheese dept.
Ostracus writes "It sounds like science fiction, but scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely. After exposing mice to emotionally powerful stimuli, such as a mild shock to their paws, the scientists then observed how well or poorly the animals subsequently recalled the particular trauma as their brain's expression of CaMKII was manipulated up and down. When the brain was made to overproduce CaMKII at the exact moment the mouse was prodded to retrieve the traumatic memory, the memory wasn't just blocked, it appeared to be fully erased."
Mars

Mars Lander Instrument Waving In the Martian Wind 46

Posted by timothy from the more-proof-of-fraud dept.
Matt_dk writes "This series of images show Phoenix's telltale instrument waving in the Martian wind. Documenting the telltale's movement helps mission scientists and engineers determine what the wind is like on Mars. On the day these images were taken, one of the images seemed to be 'out-of-phase' with other images, possibly indicating a dust devil occurrence."
Databases

Microsoft's New Programming Language, "M" 334

Posted by timothy from the well-it-sounds-delicious dept.
Anthony_Cargile writes "Microsoft announced Friday their new 'M' language, designed especially for building textual domain-specific languages and software models with XAML. Microsoft will also announce Quadrant, for building and viewing models visually, and a repository for storing and combining models using a SQL Server database. While some say the language is simply their 'D' language renamed to a further letter down the alphabet, the language is criticized for lack of a promised cross-platform function because of its ties to MS SQL server, which only runs on Windows."
Google

Was the Yahoo-Google Deal a Ploy To Weaken Yahoo? 82

Posted by Soulskill from the reply-hazy-ask-again dept.
JagsLive writes with a link to a BetaNews story about a US Senator who is questioning whether the deal between Yahoo and Google was brokered with less than honorable intentions on Google's part. The advertising deal came under scrutiny from the Department of Justice recently for potential antitrust violations. The deal has now been delayed in order to allow investigators more time for evaluation. Meanwhile, rumors are circulating that Yahoo will cut as much as 20% of its workforce after an internal memo from CEO Jerry Yang called for "discipline" and said the company was "getting fit" for the long term. For their part, Google has launched a site endorsing the deal and attempting to smooth the way for its approval by providing facts and positive reactions from experts.
The Almighty Buck

eBay To Disallow Checks and Money Orders In US 412

Posted by Soulskill from the shooting-for-their-own-bailout dept.
Sir_Kurt writes "In eBay's latest FAQ, they explain that sellers (for the good of the buyers) will no longer be allowed to accept checks or money orders as payment. They can take electronic payments only. So, will Google Checkout, Checkout by Amazon or Amazon Flexible Payment be allowed? No, says eBay: 'Google's and Amazon's products and services compete with eBay on a number of levels, so we are not going to allow them on eBay.' Options are limited to PayPal, ProPay, direct credit payments to the seller, and 'payment upon pickup.' But remember, this is for our own good!" eBay ran into trouble earlier this year for trying to restrict payment options.

Comment Const'l amend not needed for all federal elections (Score 4, Informative) 918

by s2k2vidguy (#25067247) Attached to: Barr Sues Over McCain's, Obama's Presence on Texas Ballot

one set of laws that covers how federal elections should be run

That would require an Amendment to the Constitution. For no good reason.

Not exactly. For presidential elections, yes, because the Electoral College is implicated. But for other federal elections, no. See Art. I, sec. 4, cl. 1: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators (emphasis added).

Congress has the power of preemption of state laws on elections to Congress. But to implement uniform rules for presidential elections, yes, the Constitution would need to be amended.
The Internet

Submission + - Domain Extensions are now Customizable (www.cbc.ca)

Submitted by digitally404
digitally404 writes: Internet regulators voted to loosen restrictions on internet names, a move that could allow thousands of variations of suffixes beyond the basic .com or .ca. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) overwhelmingly approved the new guidelines on Thursday in Paris after week-long meetings. The guidelines represent one of the biggest changes to the internet in its 25-year history. New names won't begin appearing for several months and ICANN won't be deciding on specific ones. The organization must decide how much the new domain names will cost. The names are expected to cost over $100,000 a piece to help help ICANN cover up to $20 million in costs.
Supercomputing

Cell-based "Roadrunner" Tops Elusive Petaflop Mark 269

Posted by timothy from the beep-beep dept.
prunedude writes "The NY times is reporting that an American military supercomputer, assembled from components originally designed for video game machines, is more than twice as fast as the previous fastest supercomputer, the I.B.M. BlueGene/L. To put the performance of the machine in perspective, Thomas P. D'Agostino, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said that if all six billion people on earth used hand calculators and performed calculations 24 hours a day and seven days a week, it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner can in one day."
Power

Oil Billionaire Building World's Largest Wind Farm 661

Posted by kdawson from the at-the-round-earth's-imagin'd-corners-blow dept.
gadzook33 writes "CNN is reporting that oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is planning to invest billions of dollars in what will probably be the world's largest wind farm. It will eventually generate 4 gigawatts, enough to power 1.3 million homes. The first 600 GE wind turbines are scheduled for delivery in 2010. Pickens says that each turbine will generate about $20,000 in income annually for the landowner who hosts it."

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