geekanarchy - Slashdot User

Submission + - France bans blogs from reporting violence

Submitted by

Picass0

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:16PM

Picass0 writes: "According to Yahoo News the French Constitutional Council has approved a law that would criminalize filming or broadcasting acts of violence by anyone other than a journalist. "The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law... ...exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991." The French government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, etc..."

Submission + - F-22 Raptor Gets Zapped by International Date Line

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:12PM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Lockheed's F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter in the world with its stealth capabilities, advanced radar, state of the art weapons systems and ultra-efficient turbofans.

But while the simulated war games were a somewhat easy feat for the Raptor, something more mundane was able to cripple six aircraft on a 12 to 15 hours flight from Hawaii to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The U.S. Air Force's mighty Raptor was felled by the International Date Line (IDL).

When the group of Raptors crossed over the IDL, multiple computer systems crashed on the planes. Everything from fuel subsystems, to navigation and partial communications were completely taken offline. Numerous attempts were made to "reboot" the systems to no avail.

http://www.dailytech.com/Lockheeds+F22+Raptor+Gets +Zapped+by+International+Date+Line/article6225.htm "

Submission + - Boycott the RIAA in March

Submitted by Barrien on Wednesday February 28, 2007 @08:50AM

Barrien writes: The guys over at Gizmodo have declared a boycott of the RIAA during the month of March. They are not advocating piracy, instead they suggest buying non-signed artist's music, or music that is available online. The full scoop can be found on their webpage, or here's a direct link to their plan. This is how we make our stand against the monster that is the RIAA.

Submission + - AMD's 'Frantic Price Cuts' May Pressure Intel

Submitted by kog777 on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @04:31PM

kog777 writes: Price competition is sparking up again between the world's largest chip makers, Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD). As Intel took a technological lead late last year, AMD responded with "frantic price cuts" after a weak start to its first quarter, Needham analyst Y. Edwin Mok said in a note to clients on Tuesday.

Submission + - Is there any reason to report spammers to ISP's?

Submitted by marko_ramius on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @03:36PM

marko_ramius writes: For years I've been a good netizen and reported spam that I get to the appropriate contacts at ISP's. In the entire time that I've done this I've gotten (maybe) 5 or 6 responses from those ISP's informing me that they have taken action against the spammer.

In recent years, however, I haven't gotten any responses.

Are the ISP's so overwhelmed with abuse reports to respond to ANYBODY that reports spam? Do they even bother acting on the reports?

Is there any real reason to report spammers?

Submission + - U.S. Lobby Groups Criticize the World on Copyright

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @10:00AM

An anonymous reader writes: The International Intellectual Property Alliance — a group that brings together several U.S. lobby groups including the MPAA, RIAA, BSA, the ESA, and publisher groups, has just released its Section 301 recommendations, criticizing 60 countries for their copyright laws. While the report leads to dire media coverage, Michael Geist has just debunked the lobby campaign demonstrating how "the U.S. approach is quite clearly one of 'do what I say, not what I do' (fair use is good for the U.S., but no one else), criticizing country after country for not enacting a DMCA, and blasting national attempts to improve education or culture though exceptions or funding programs."

Submission + - Amazon asserts right to adjust prices after sale

Submitted by An anonymous reader on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @09:07AM

An anonymous reader writes: On December 23, Amazon advertised a "buy one get one free" sale on DVD boxsets, but did not test the promotion before going live. When anyone placed two boxsets in their cart, the website gave a double discount — so the "grand total" shown (before order submission) was $0.00 or something very small. Despite terms stating that Amazon checks order prices before shipping, Amazon shipped the vast majority of orders. Five days later (December 28), after orders had been received and presumably opened, Amazon emailed customers advising them to return the boxsets unopened or customers' credit cards would be charged an additional amount. (You can read more threads about this here and here.) Starting yesterday, Amazon has been (re)charging credit cards, often without authorization. On Amazon's side, they didn't advertise any double discount, and the free or nearly-free boxsets must have cost them a mint. But with Amazon continually giving unadvertised discounts that seem to be errors, is "return the merchandise or be charged" the new way that price glitches will be handled?

Submission + - Nationwide fined $1.9 million for stolen data

Submitted by

JamesD_UK

on Wednesday February 14, 2007 @09:03AM

JamesD_UK writes: "The BBC reports that the UK's Nationwide Building society has been fined £980,000 ($1.9 million USD) for failures that led to details of 11 million customers being compromised from an employee's stolen laptop. Financial Services Authority found that the employee had put the data on the laptop without the knowledge of Nationwide and that investigations into the loss did not start until three weeks after it was reported. It is not publically known exactly what information was lost; the laptop is still missing."

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