vain gloria - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Yahoo's promise to discard data after 3 months? (Score 2, Interesting) 301

by vain gloria on Wednesday July 29, 2009 @01:25AM (#28862591) Attached to: Microsoft and Yahoo Reach Deal

Cuil was launched last year with great fanfare regarding its privacy policy which promised not to track users' personally identifiable information. See their current policy alongside a warning that it is soon to change somehow here: http://www.cuil.com/info/privacy/

I use and normally recommend Clusty which says in plain English that "We at Clusty don't track you." (http://clusty.com/privacy) and in legalese that they do collect "Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, referral data, the date and time of your query and one or more cookies (described below) that may uniquely identify your browser" (http://clusty.com/privacypolicy).

That's either ethical or useful for you. tl;dr - one beginning with "C".

Comment Re:Sleazy and disgraceful (Score 1) 408

by vain gloria on Saturday May 02, 2009 @08:11AM (#27797673) Attached to: NoScript Adds Subscriptions To Adblock Plus

Firefox extensions and browser plugins proper certainly can be disabled/prevented from installing by Mozilla. See https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/blocklist/ for the (en-US only?) naughty list.

I don't know what SeaMonkey, Camino, Iceweasel, etc do, but filtering for "blocklist" on about:config shows your browser's exact settings. Notably the extensions.blocklist.enabled pref allows the user to turn the remote killswitch off if they so desire.

Comment Re:Huh wot ? (Score 2, Insightful) 161

by vain gloria on Tuesday March 10, 2009 @10:09AM (#27134051) Attached to: YouTube To Block Music Videos In the UK

Amusingly enough, the propensity to unthinkingly invoke Orwell is akin to his concept of duckspeak. Reading multiple +5 Insightful "1984 wasn't an instruction manual maaaan" posts in a single Brit-related topic makes me wonder about the duckmods though. Perhaps it's hard to peck out the -1 Overrated with a bill?

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Team Not Art Thieves 62

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @04:30PM from the in-the-clear dept.

Via Kotaku an Inquirer article reports that, despite earlier claims to the contrary, it looks like the folks behind the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. title are not guilty of art theft. It seems both Half-Life 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. use textures from a pack produced by Marlin Studios. The similarities are there because both teams used pre-canned materials for their titles, not because of any tom-foolery on the part of GSC GameWorld.

Submission + - Google Calendar Lets Corporate Data Slip

Submitted by

narramissic

on Wednesday April 18, 2007 @02:12PM

narramissic writes: "An ITworld article opens: 'It's not clear what gets discussed during McKinsey & Co.'s weekly internal communication meeting, but the dial-in number and passcode for the event can be easily found by searching with Google.' It just so happens that the Search Google Calendar feature, which was added to Google's Web-based calendar service last November, is both a cool way to discover interesting events and a way to unearth sensitive corporate data. Of course, the trouble lies not with the technology, but with oblivious users. Marv Goldschmitt, vice president of business development with data auditing appliance vendor Tizor Systems Inc. says, 'this kind of data leakage is a growing problem for corporations, whose employees are adopting a new generation of Web-based productivity tools without necessarily understanding the security implications.'"

Submission + - Valve customer credit card details hacked

Submitted by appregator on Saturday April 14, 2007 @10:23AM

appregator writes: It seems Valve's security is under fire once again, this time a hacker by the name of MaddoXX has gained root access to their servers. After exposing customer information, including several full credit card numbers, and Valve bank account details, the hacker threatened to release more in an apparent attempt to extort Valve. The screenshots posted by the hacker show their total assets to be at around 9.2 million USD. When users began reporting the leak on the steampowered forums their threads were quickly deleted. Why on earth was such personal information being stored on a web server? Screenshot of hackers website at http://i17.tinypic.com/2e0irza.jpg (masking CC numbers), taken by the steampowered forum user.

Submission + - Software Deletes Files to Defend Against Piracy

Submitted by

teamhasnoi

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @02:10AM

teamhasnoi writes: "Back in 2004, Slashdot discussed a program that deleted your home directory on entry of a pirated serial number. Now, a new developer is using the same method to protect his software, aptly named Display Eater. In the dev's own words, "There exist several illegal cd-keys that you can use to unlock the demo program. If Display Eater detects that you are using these, it will erase something. I don't know if this is going to become Display Eater policy. If this level of piracy continues, development will stop." Is deleting user data ever acceptable, even when defending one's software from piracy?"

Submission + - UK Military Experiments on "Remote Viewing"

Submitted by

inanet

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @12:25AM

inanet writes: "Secret classified documents on "Remote Viewing" experiments conducted by the UK's Ministry of defence have just been released under the Freedom of Information Act. The experiments were conducted in 2001 and 2002 and there is some really intriguing data covered, including full details of each experiment. Analysis and key points from the docs, along with links to the full docs Can be found here"

Submission + - Myspace Lockdown: Is it possible?

Submitted by

Raxxon

on Friday February 23, 2007 @10:03PM

Raxxon writes: "We (my business partner and I) were asked by a local company to help 'tighten up' their security. After looking at a few things we ran some options by the owner and he asked that we attempt to block access to MySpace. He cited reasons of wasted work time as well as some of the nightmare stories about spyware/viruses/etc. Work began and the more I dig into the subject the worse things look. You can block the 19 or 20 Class C Address Blocks that MySpace has, but then you get into problems of sites like "MySpace Bypass" and other such sites that allow you to bypass most of the filtering that's done.

Other than becoming rather invasive (squid with customized screening setups) is there a way to effectively block MySpace from being accessed at a business? What about at home for those who would like to keep their kids off of it? If a dedicated web cache/proxy system is needed how do you prevent things like SSL enabled Proxy sites (denying MySpace but allowing any potentially 'legal' aspects)? In the end is it worth it vs just adopting an Acceptable Use Policy that states that going to MySpace can lead to eventual dismissal from your job?"

Submission + - Creative Commons Licenses Version 3.0 Released

Submitted by

lithis

on Friday February 23, 2007 @07:06PM

lithis writes: "A new version of the Creative Commons licenses has been released. What's new: “we have spun off the "generic" license to be the CC US license and created a new generic license ... we are ensuring that all CC jurisdiction licenses and the CC unported license have consistent, express treatment of the issues of moral rights and collecting society royalties ... [the license now explicitly declares that] a person may not misuse the attribution requirement of a CC license to improperly assert or imply an association or relationship with the licensor or author ... licenses will now include the ability for derivatives to be relicensed under a "Creative Commons Compatible License" ... the licenses include minor clarifications to the language of the licenses to take account of the concerns of Debian and MIT.”"

Submission + - Gizmodo calls for RIAA boycott in March

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23, 2007 @04:33PM

An anonymous reader writes: Gadget review site Gizmodo is calling for a boycott of RIAA-signed bands in the month of March: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/putt ing-our-money-where-our-mouths-are-boycott-the-ria a-in-march-239281.php Instead, they suggest spending your greenbacks on indy artists, or attending concerts/buying merchandise from your favorite RIAA artist (which puts money in the artist's pocket), rather than buying recordings (and further enriching the fat cats at the RIAA). All I can say is, "hell yes!"

Submission + - Blizzard Sues Bot Creator; Seeks Customer Info

Submitted by on Friday February 23, 2007 @03:05PM

An anonymous reader writes: After filing a prayer for relief to continue the selling of his WoWGlider, an automation bot for Blizzard's fanatical World of Warcraft, Michael Donnelly has again found himself in some deep water: Blizzard has retorted demanding WoWGlider be shut down, his URL, and financial compensation, but more interestingly they want all of WoWGlider's sales records. Presumably, Blizzard will cross-reference this with their current user database and ban anyone who bought the program. Furthermore, Blizzard claims that WoWGlider violates copyrights by accessing the game client's RAM space, a process which is also done by every anti-virus program. So why is there no Blizzard vs. Symantec?

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