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Privacy

Maine Rejects Federally Mandated ID Cards 621

Posted by CowboyNeal from the marks-of-the-beast dept.
WebHostingGuy writes "The State of Maine rejected the federally mandated ID cards passed by Congress. In a non-partisan vote the legislature flatly stated that they would not force its citizens to use driver's licenses that comply with digital ID standards, which were established under the 2005 Real ID Act. It also asked Congress to repeal the law."
Space

Submission + - Mars Express scientists think water underground

Submitted by
WaltonNews
WaltonNews writes: "The Mars Express spacecraft, from the European Space Agency (ESA), has indicated to scientists that the dry atmosphere and surface on the planet Mars does not necessarily mean Mars is dry underneath the surface. In fact, a huge storehouse of water and carbon dioxide could be found in underground reservoirs. More of the story appears at: http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/8959/1066/."
Education

Submission + - US Patent Office to Re-Examine Blackboard Patent

Submitted by
Mr_5tein
Mr_5tein writes: "Groklaw has reported that the US Patent and Trademark Office has just ordered re-examination of the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc (http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070125 20202052), thanks to a filing by the Software Freedom Law Center. SFLC's press release states, "The Patent Office found that prior art cited in SFLC's request raises 'a substantial new question of patentability' regarding all 44 claims of Blackboard's patent..."

The SFLC goes on to explain that though such re-examinations may take a couple of years to complete, approx. "70% of re-examinations are successful in having a patent narrowed or completely revoked.""
Moon

Submission + - British Moon Mission

Submitted by
syguy
syguy writes: "Never ones to give up easily after their failed Mars mission, British scientists are hoping to try again with a series of robotic missions to the dark side of the moon by 2010. Pink Floyd's album Dark Side of the Moon was also themed on exploration, though of the human condition, but I digress. One mission — MoonRaker — will look for possible moon base sites. Who could resist naming a space mission after a Bond movie? Let's hope the spacecraft is more durable than the one in the movie. They are probably saving the other obvious TV show reference — Moonbase Alpha from Space 1999 — for the base itself."
AMD

Submission + - AMD claims 40% better performance over Clovertown

Submitted by Neil Jacksons
Neil Jacksons writes: Randy Allen, AMD's corporate vice president for server and workstation products said AMD's "Barcelona" quad-core chip, due to arrive midway through 2007, will be a significant notch faster than the Clovertown chips expected to be on the market at that time. "We expect across a wide variety of workloads for Barcelona to outperform Clovertown by 40 percent," The quad-core chip also will outperform AMD's current dual-core Opterons on "floating point" mathematical calculations by a factor of 3.6 at the same clock rate, he said.
Media (Apple)

Norway Outlaws iTunes 930

Posted by CowboyNeal from the run-out-of-town dept.
haddieman notes that while many people are getting more and more annoyed at DRM, Norway actually did something about it. The PC World article explains: "Good intentions, questionable execution. European legislators have been giving DRM considerable attention for a while, but Norway has actually gone so far as to declare that Apple's iTunes store is illegal under Norwegian law. The crux of the issue is that the Fairplay DRM that is at the heart of the iTunes/iPod universe doesn't work with anything else, meaning that if you want access to the cast iTunes library, you have to buy an iPod."
Security

Submission + - Microsoft admits IE7+ EV SSL Won't Stop Phishing

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Stanford University and Microsoft Research just published a study that claims that the new Extended Validation SSL Certificates in IE7 are ineffective. The EV certificates don't improve users ability to detect attacks and the interface can be spoofed. Training users actually decreased their ability to detect attacks. The study [PDF] will be presented at Usable Security 2007 next month, which is a little late now that the new certificates are already being issued.
Google

Submission + - Google.de Domain Hijacked

Submitted by
DotNM
DotNM writes: "Looks like Google's domain name was stolen... not once, but twice, at the same time. From the article:
...However they reportedly reacted by transferring the domain to another German provider, Favo, in a second case of domain theft...
Apparently Germany automatically approves domain transfers if they receive no response from the registrant. This is a dangerous practice."
Privacy

Domestic Spying Program to Get Judicial Oversight 151

Posted by samzenpus from the who-watches-the-watchmen dept.
Alchemist253 writes "The U.S. Justice Department has consented to court oversight (albeit via a secret court) of the controversial domestic wiretapping program (the "Terrorist Surveillance Program") previously discussed at length on Slashdot. From the article, "[oversight] authority has been given to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and [it] already has approved one request for monitoring the communications of a person believed to be linked to al Qaeda or an associated terror group.""
Power

Submission + - cancel your verizon contract without penalty!

Submitted by
eternal1001
eternal1001 writes: "the following link will get ya to the goods regarding cancelling ones verizon contract without an early termination fee: http://consumerist.com/consumer/cancellations/brea k-your-verizon-contract-without-fee-thanks-to-txt- msg-raise-228495.php it seems that verizon's greed (charging one shiny nickel extra for every received international message) is their own undoing... time to drop them and opt for a provider with no contracts! YAY!!!!!1!one"
The Internet

Political Strife Erupts in Second Life 156

Posted by Zonk from the getting-hot-in-there dept.
covert.c writes "A real-life drama in the political world has spilled over into the virtual, as the Second Life headquarters of France's controversial Front National political party fell to violent protesters. The anti-FN activists, who had armed themselves with slogans, placards and weapons, leveled the digital buildings occupied by Front National. Second Life is often home to established political and social movements. It seems logical that opposing forces would also choose to make SL their stage."
Caldera

Submission + - SCO Loses More Money

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Today, the SCO Group filed a press release about its 4th Quarter profits, and it's another sad story about more money lost, despite legal expenses going down: "The decrease in revenue was primarily attributable to continued competitive pressures on the Company's UNIX products and services." Groklaw has the story.

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