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Submission + - Rep. Berman Doing Mafiaa Bidding (As Usual) (variety.com)

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "Howard Berman, the Representative from Disney, is once again trying to turn ISPs into part of the RIAA/MPAA's extortion and shakedown juggernaut by requiring them to pass along threatening letters to subscribers that use P2P. This is quite alarming, coming as it does from the head of the house Intellectual Property Committee. Many P2P lawsuits are based on very flimsy evidence, such as an IP address alone. One can only hope that more defendants have positive outcomes such as winning back their attorney's fees."
Security

Submission + - Sophisticated Highly Targeted Phishing Attempts (memorytext.com)

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "I am involved with breeding purebred corgis, a small world which still makes heavy use of LISTSERV. Late yesterday an email arrived purporting to be from a well known breeder, indicating that she was stranded in Africa having lost her money and passport. The email appears to have been copied to a list of the most active LISTSERV contributors. It is in good gramatically correct English, and just happens to have originated in Pakistan based on the headers. Pakistan is a long way from Africa. The sender must have been monitoring the LISTSERV for some time to get his distribution list. Have any other Slashdot members had experience with such well designed and targeting phishing attempts, or is this level of sophistication something new?"
Security

Submission + - Voting Machine Companies Having "Week From Hel

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "The usual suspects, Diebold leading the pack, must be wondering what else can go wrong. Considering their arrogance in the past, their comeuppance is truly well deserved. The State of California's source code review [PDF] of the Diebold voting system has been released. Additional reports will be made available as the Secretary of State determines that they do not inadvertently disclose security-sensitive information. One wonders what it will take to convince voting machine manufacturers not to do things like hard coding passwords as "12345678". Plenty of additional links can be found here."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Call for alien technology to cure climate change

Submitted by
Introspective
Introspective writes: "Paul Hellyer, the 83 year old former Canadian defense minister is making demands for governments to release alien technology to cure climate change. Convinced that governments around the world are hoarding alien technology, he is calling for them to reveal it in order to save the planet — presumably for us all to start using alien energy sources to replace our dependency on fossil fuels. He states "We need to persuade governments to come clean on what they know. Some of us suspect they know quite a lot, and it might be enough to save our planet if applied quickly enough""
Patents

Submission + - "Inventive Step" test for UK patents consi

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "People on both sides of the Atlantic can see there's something wrong with the current patent system, but it's interesting that in the UK, it's the patent office itself considering the reform. A public consultation process was carried out last year and the report has just been published (warning PDF). It's unfortunate that on this side of the ocean it takes The Supreme Court to get involved and to force the issue."
Space

Submission + - Ocean Planets on the Brink of Detection

Submitted by ZonkerWilliam
ZonkerWilliam writes: Seems, at least theoretically, that there may be water planets, and that we may be close to detecting them. http://www.physorg.com/news89627725.html Excerpt from the article; "Imagine a world with no land at all, merely the impenetrable depths of a seething ocean. Models of planet formation predict the existence of such worlds, even though our own solar system has none. Indeed, their formation should actually be rather common — and new satellites may soon detect them around other stars."
Programming

Submission + - Next Generation Source Code Search Engine

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Newsforge has an article on a new source code search engine, All The Code which has just launched a public alpha. According to the article, unlike previous generations of source code search engines (such as koders and google codesearch) this new engine "looks at how code is used" to help determine the relevance. The idea being that if a library is used more frequently in a certain context, it is probably more relevant than a less popular library. Unfortunately only supports Java for the time being, but the faq indicates they will be adding more languages once the alpha is completed. I wonder if the other players will adopt this method?
Security

Submission + - Just saw my first green Address Bar...

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "One of the browsers I need occasionally is Internet Explorer 7, complete with its new security features. Today, for the first time, I saw a green address bar reflecting "Class 2 Certification" — GoDaddy had it. Am I alone in my ominous feeling that somewhere down the road, this green address bar will become an expectation for the general public using an ecommerce site, giving an advantage to only incorporated businesses who can afford the large cost?"
Security

Submission + - Could X-ray scanners work on the street?

Submitted by Zebadias
Zebadias writes: X-ray cameras that would "undress" passers-by in a bid to thwart terrorists concealing weapons, could be coming to a street near you, according to reports at the BBC. Aside from the obvious privacy issues, would such a plan work?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft to launch online payment system?

Submitted by
Panaqqa
Panaqqa writes: "It looks like once again, Microsoft has floated the idea of launching their own online payment system. Never mind that even Google is having difficulty taking a bite out of eBay's PayPal service with Google Checkout, or that the market is increasingly cluttered with pretenders to the PayPal throne."

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