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Censorship

Submission + - RIAA going bust in Sweden

Submitted by mengu
mengu writes: It seems that a recent decision by Swedish court will make it more difficult for the **AA to find the persons behind the ip-addresses. From TFA "The court is confirming that file sharing is punishable by fines. This means that the police are not permitted to demand details of the addresses behind IP addresses and cannot carry out house searches," said Piratbyrån's Tobias Andersson. What it translates to is that since the crime will only render in fines and not prison time, Search-warrants cannot be issued. http://www.thelocal.se/7581/20070612/
Security

Submission + - US Government makes modifying computers illegal

Submitted by
packetmon
packetmon writes: "US Government officials in their infinite wisdom have created such a broad law in hopes of punishing malware writers that the law can punish just about anyone. "...engage in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in connection with specified conduct, including: (1) taking unsolicited control of the computer; (2) modifying computer settings; (3) collecting personally identifiable information [incl. using keystroke loggers]; (4) inducing the owner or authorized user to disclose personally identifiable information; (5) inducing the unsolicited installation of computer software; and (6) removing or disabling a security, anti-spyware, or anti-virus technology." Now, is this broad what? Using Geeksquad as an example of this insane law, imagine a GeekSquad employee having to fix someone's machine. What if he or she has to disable antivirus software in order to fix something. Oops there goes the law. What about on the ISP level, what about if an ISP is filtering dirty clients on his network and via MAC address filtering sends his client to a null routed VLAN. He technically "modified" a machine. There are so many avenues for abuse going on with a broad statement such as: "modifying computer settings". Wired Article"
Google

Submission + - Gmail adds ability to View Powerpoint (google.com)

Submitted by bohn002
bohn002 writes: https://mail.google.com/mail/help/about_whatsnew.h tml Gmail has added the ability to view powerpoint presentations online that are attached to your email messages. Could this be the first peeks of Google Presentation? From Gmail... "View as slideshow Now you can open PowerPoint attachments as slideshows, without having to download anything. Just click "View as slideshow" next to the .ppt attachment you want to preview. Since you can open .doc and .xls attachments with Google Docs and Spreadsheets too, there's no need to leave your web browser to check out your Gmail attachments"
Censorship

Submission + - CNN Censors Ron Paul Supporters (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Lost+Found
Lost+Found writes: On June 5th, CNN hosted a round of debate for 10 GOP candidates for the 2008 Presidential race of the United States. After the debates, CNN posted an article on its Political Ticker blog asking who won the debate. Pages of comments contained messages of support for Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Surprisingly, CNN redirected the GOP "Who won" page to the Democratic "Who won" page from the earlier debates, after which it took the page offline completely.

And it continued the same way through about 140 comments before this site was... shut down. Initially, it pointed readers to the "who won the Democratic debate?" blog question. Then it showed a "Nothing here" page.


It is safe to assume that Internet polls don't necessarily reflect the popularity of a candidate amongst the American mainstream, particularly when a candidate's base might be made up largely of techies. But when moderators refuse to give an equal amount of time to each candidate, anchors all but refuse to mention the name of certain second-tier candidates, and the webmasters of large news organizations censor the preferences of their own viewers, one must wonder what kind of damage is done to the political discourse.
Biotech

Submission + - Teams mimic Stem cells using skin cells (yahoo.com)

Submitted by JagsLive
JagsLive writes: A Great Development in Stem Cell Research : In a leap forward for stem cell research, three independent teams of scientists reported Wednesday that they have produced the equivalent of embryonic stem cells in mice without the controversial destruction of embryos. They got ordinary skin cells to behave like stem cells. If the same could be done with human cells — a big if — the procedure could lead to breakthrough medical treatments without the contentious ethical and political debates surrounding the use of embryos. Experts were impressed by the achievement.
Mozilla

Submission + - Camino 1.5 Released

Submitted by Moby Cock
Moby Cock writes: Mozilla has released Camino 1.5 featuring updated tabs, spell checking, updated RSS feed handling and security fixes. Mac users rejoice.
Portables

Submission + - Asus stuns Computex with £100 laptop (linuxdevices.com)

Submitted by srinravi
srinravi writes: According to linuxdevices.com, Asus chairman Jonney Shih sprang a surprise during Intel's Computex keynote today with the announcement of a $190 laptop.

The notebook measures roughly 120 x 100 x 30mm (WDH) and weighs only 900g. The notebook boots in 15 seconds from its solid-state 2GB flash drive. The huge auditorium then burst into applause as Shih revealed the astounding price tag. Dubbed the 3ePC, Shih claimed the notebook is the 'lowest cost and easiest PC to use'.

The notebook uses a custom-written Linux operating system, much like the OLPC, though unlike the OLPC, Asus has chosen a more conventional interface. The 3epc is based on an unspecified Intel processor and chipset. Given the laptop's low cost, it may well be among the first products based on Tolopai, Intel's forthcoming Pentium M-powered SoC (system-on-chip). Along with a Pentium M core clocked between 600MHz and 1.2GHz, initial Tolopai chips are expected to integrate components traditionally found in PC northbridges and southbridges — a graphics processing unit (GPU), external memory and storage controllers, and peripheral interfaces such as USB and Ethernet.
OS X

Submission + - Sun leaks that ZFS to be a default in OS X Leopard

Submitted by blankaBrew
blankaBrew writes: Perhaps overcome with excitement (and forgetting that Apple doesn't like such pre-emptive disclosures), Sun's Jonathan Schwartz announced today at Sun event in Washington D.C. that Apple would be making ZFS "the file system" in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard (video link, requires RealPlayer). In fact, this week you'll see that Apple is announcing at their Worldwide Developer Conference that ZFS has become the file system in Mac OS 10. Rumors of Apple's interest in ZFS began in April 2006, when an OpenSolaris mailing list revealed that Apple had contacted Sun regarding porting ZFS to OS 10. The file system later began making appearances in Leopard builds. ZFS has a long list of improvements over Apple's current file system, Journaled HFS+. More information on ZFS is available at the ZFS homepage and Wikipedia. For live coverage of WWDC (text and photos), you know where to turn.
Portables

Submission + - A closer look at Asus' $199 computer

Submitted by Known Nutter
Known Nutter writes: This year's Computex is proving to be very exciting with Asus' introduction of their $200 PC. Chairman Jonney Shih introduced the flash-powered portable computer and claimed that it can boot in about 15 seconds. The computer will be available in 7 and 10-inch screen versions and will run a customized Linux distro. Asus has not said when the computer will be available.
The Internet

Submission + - AT&T's Former CEO Subject of Disinformation Ag (techdirt.com)

Submitted by casings
casings writes: The fellas over at Techdirt have detailed some pretty disturbing propaganda about the earlier post about Ed Whitacre stepping down. The article details the actions of the group "Save the Internet" where they used false quotes and and a faked video in which they imagine Ed Whitacre to have said, and put them in a blog which was published as if they were real. While the Anti Net Neutrality side has obviously claimed falsehoods, is this the kind of trash that people who embrace neutrality support? Here is the Slashdot article covering the blog.
Linuxcare

Submission + - Fonts for Linux Make them easy on the eyes

Submitted by
Dan the Man
Dan the Man writes: "One of the major things that people request is for better fonts on Linux. It is quite possible to make your Linux Desktop look great, even if you have a flat panel monitor. You might have noticed that in Linux, your favorite Microsoft fonts like Times New Roman might not be installed automatically. Check out my Guide and make Linux look great! Check out my howto here: http://pimpyourlinux.com/linux-feature-review/pimp -out-your-fonts-for-linux/"
Wii

Submission + - Wii Motherboards Changed to Prevent Piracy

Submitted by Croakyvoice
Croakyvoice writes: Nintendo in an effort to stop piracy on its Nintendo Wii Console is now shipping consoles in Japan with 3-pins that are physically cut from a surface-mounted IC, this latest move makes all present Wii modchips incapable of modding the new consoles. As yet this new motherboard change is only showing up in Japan where it has already pushed the price of consoles up.
Patents

Submission + - Linux vs. Microsoft, the Patent Slander Suit?

Submitted by Hoplite3
Hoplite3 writes: Recently, Microsoft bigwigs Balmer and Gates engaged in some patent sabre rattling directed at the Gnu/Linux operating system, claiming it violated 235 patents. Torvalds, Moglen, Shuttleworth, and others in the Linux community made some responses, but these didn't get the big airtime that the Microsoft claims did. All of these responses were reassurances that Microsoft didn't have a case, wouldn't take action, or wasn't the real threat. But what about a tougher, legal, response? What about a slander suit?

Here's the deal: would you be willing to donate money to a slander suit against Microsoft? Their comments reduced the value of Linux, value that keeps big corporations donating money and the time of their employees. It shouldn't be hard to establish this as the intention of the remarks. Microsoft can always use the standard slander defense of showing their statements are true. Of course, that would force them to state specifically which patents were violated, exactly what they'd like to avoid. If the suit was successful, the money could be stocked away to pay for future patent battles for Free Software. If it fails because Microsoft discloses the specific violations, these can actually be dealt with. This is a win-win situation for Linux, and a put-up or shut-up situation for Microsoft.

There are some wrinkles. Microsoft just has to show that they believe the statements they made to be true. The Free Software plaintiff would have to establish the damage done. This muddies the waters, but isn't it worth a try? The possibility of forcing disclosure is too tempting to pass up.

For me, and for many of you too, Linux is an essential daily tool that makes my life easier. These threats to its existence are odious and upsetting because they raise the possibility of the death of Linux. We need to fight zealously to maintain our favorite OS.

It would also set a precedent that Linux will fight patents head-on, rather than in some licensing deal. It would be the equivalent of ballistic missile defenses in the mutually assured destruction world of patents. It could also be a good landmark case in patent defense. Establishing a legal precedent of slander suits to force patent disclosure could up the ante for baseless patent threats in the marketplace.

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