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Games

Congressman Wants Health Warnings On Video Games 421

An anonymous reader writes "California Rep. Joe Baca has proposed a bill which would mandate placing health warning labels on any video game rated T (13+) or higher by the ESRB. The Video Game Health Labeling Act of 2009 would require a cigarette pack-like label that reads, 'WARNING: Excessive exposure to violent video games and other violent media has been linked to aggressive behavior.'"

Comment sure is (Score 1, Interesting) 180

Yep, this is defamation. Sucks to be him. The EFF won't get anywhere, you don't have a free speech right to defame a private party. This isn't a situation where a trademark is being used for commentary, or copyrighted material is being cited for criticism and commentary, etc. This guy criticized a private party, in writing (libel), about his professional life and insinuated he was involved in crimes of dishonesty.

I hope the verdict is big.

Comment Re:Um no (Score 1, Insightful) 877

Do you actually believe this? "No new food on the planet for a year?" Give me a break. This supervolcano, even in a worst case scenario, would not be sufficient to create global subzero temperatures and block enough sunlight to prevent crops globally. This is more alarmist garbage unsupported by any facts.

Comment Re:Um no (Score 4, Insightful) 877

Actually, the number of deaths would be negligible. Yellowstone sits in the most sparsely populated region of the U.S. The actual direct destructive power of the volcano would only effect a 40 square mile area, which except for Jackson Hole, is largely empty.

Laramie, Cheyenne, Bozeman, Billings, etc would be hit hard by ashfall, but Denver would only get about a foot. Folks know ash collapses roofs. So, gasp, folks would clear the ash as it accumulates. Many or most people would evacuate anyway.

This is alarmism. At its worst, there will be an immense disruption of the electrical and telecommunications grid, immense expense from ash damage and removal, alot of immediate deaths and some ash deaths.

Comment Re:Update (Score 4, Insightful) 241

I'm sorry, but do the students not belong to the community called "Canada", to which CF sufferers also belong?

But this isn't about "communities" is it? No, it is "race" and "sex" counting. It is the most obscene consequence of multi-culti racism and sexism. Dividing the citizenry into camps defined by their race and sex, whose merit is contingent upon race and sex. It is racism and sexism, by definition.

Audio Watermark Web Spider Starts Crawling 173

DippityDo writes "A new web tool is scanning the net for signs of copyright infringement. Digimarc's patented system searches video and audio files for special watermarks that would indicate they are not to be shared, then reports back to HQ with the results. It sounds kind of creepy, but has a long way to go before it makes a practical difference. 'For the system to work, players at multiple levels would need to get involved. Broadcasters would need to add identifying watermarks to their broadcast, in cooperation with copyright holders, and both parties would need to register their watermarks with the system. Then, in the event that a user capped a broadcast and uploaded it online, the scanner system would eventually find it and report its location online. Yet the system is not designed to hop on P2P networks or private file sharing hubs, but instead crawls public web sites in search of watermarked material.'"
Security

Submission + - Solaris Telnet Worm

An anonymous reader writes: The previously discovered Solaris telnet vulnerability is now being used by a worm to spread. In addition, the worm opens up a /bin/sh backdoor and has a payload of sending funny system broadcast messages related to security researchers including one that says "Theo deRaadt SUCKS!" in ASCII art.
OS X

Submission + - Using Safari can slow your system down?

sandoz writes: While how fast a browser can render a web page is certainly an important weapon in the browser war arguments, the difference is usually a matter of seconds at the most. To my mind, a more important measure of speed is how a browser affects the overall speed of your SYSTEM. Macenstein has any interesting article about how running Safari seems to slow down unrelated programs. You can read the article here

Feed 'Fair Use' Bill Returns, Gutted (wired.com)

Reps. Boucher and Doolittle try for a third time to tone down the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but a key revision takes the teeth out of the measure. In Listening Post.


XBox (Games)

Submission + - XBOX360 Hypervisor Security Protection hacked

ACTRAiSER writes: "A recent Post on Bugtraq claims the hack of the XBOX360 Security Protection Hypervisor. It includes sample code as well. "We have discovered a vulnerability in the Xbox 360 hypervisor that allows privilege escalation into hypervisor mode. Together with a method to inject data into non-privileged memory areas, this vulnerability allows an attacker with physical access to an Xbox 360 to run arbitrary code such as alternative operating systems with full privileges and full hardware access.""

Patent Office Head Lays Out Reform Strategy 253

jeevesbond writes to tell us that Jon Dudas, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office has laid out a plan for patent reform. "Speaking at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose, Dudas said that characterizing the patent system as hurting innovation is a 'fundamentally wrong' way to frame the debate. 'I have traveled around the world, and every nation is thinking how it can model [intellectual property governance] after the U.S,' Dudas said. 'It's a proven system, over 200 years old. The Supreme Court, Congress and policy makers are involved [in cases and legal reforms] not because the system is broken. It's not perfect, and we should be having the debate on how to improve.'"

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