SpiritusGladius1517 - Slashdot User

Submission + - RFID Passports Cloned Without Opening the Package

Submitted by

Jeremy

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @04:01PM

Jeremy writes: "Using some simple deduction, a security consultant discovered how to clone a passport as it's being mailed to its recipient, without ever opening the package. These are the kinds of things that people need to understand are possible now that our governments are trying to use wireless technology (inherantly insecure) for security."

Submission + - SpamKiller Blanks Out Lotus Notes

Submitted by Baron Rag Narok on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:47PM

Baron Rag Narok writes: I was checking some reviews about how good McAfee SpamKiller is. I ended up on something rather recent that might suggest foul play... who knows. Might just be that McAfee doesn't really know what it's doing. Thought this story might interest some readers: SpamKiller Blanks Out Lotus Notes

A Network Sniffer On Steroids 129

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:40PM from the data-seepage dept.

QuantumCrypto writes "Errata has developed a new network sniffer, dubbed 'Ferret,' that looks for traffic using 25 protocols, including those for the popular instant message clients as well as DHCP, SNMP, DNS and HTTP. This means the sniffer will capture requests for network addresses, network management tools, Web sites queries, Web traffic and more. 'You don't realize how much you're making public, so I wrote a tool that tells you,' said Robert Graham, Errata's chief executive. Errata has released the source code to this version 1.0, 'feature-poor and buggy' tool on its site. Anyone with a wireless card will be able to run it, Graham said."

Submission + - Google Maps has Traffic Information

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:14PM

An anonymous reader writes: Has nobody else noticed that Google Maps now has Traffic information?

Submission + - Leopard could attract Windows switchers

Submitted by MacAddict on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:13PM

MacAddict writes: Prudential Equity has raised its rating and target price on Apple stock. Analysts there now see Apple as an 'overweight' stock, raising the target price 20 per cent, from $100 to $105. Prudential cites expectations of higher Mac sales, better margins and new product launches — including a widescreen, flash-based video iPod in the second half of the year — as catalysts for better performance from Apple. The 27 March announcement of Adobe CS3 is likely to generate a spike in sales of Apple's professional Macs, Prudential said. "Given that Microsoft's Vista has not been very well received by the consumer, a successful Leopard launch could drive more consumers to shift form Windows-based PCs to Macs," said the analysts, according to MacNN. Prudential's analysis emerges as Banc of America analyst Keith Bachman speculates that the release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will add $200 million to Apple revenue this year, observing that the Mac OS X user base now sits at 22 million users. http://www.macworld.co.uk/business/news/index.cfm? newsid=17406

Submission + - A Google Earth for the body?

Submitted by

Morten Skogly

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:05PM

Morten Skogly writes: "I had this idea for a virtual body as a opensource project, and I was wondering if anyone had any input.

The idea is Google Earth and / or a Google Map for the body, where you could rotate and navigate the human body in 3d, zoom in, but instead of stopping on the surface, the zoom should continue through the skin, so that you could look on all the diffrent layers, organs etc, read news, and have an open api and import format that would let people add data and layers to it, just like Google earth.

http://pappmaskin.blogspot.com/2007/03/idea-google -earth-for-body.html"

IBM Many Eyes After One Month 35

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @02:59PM from the measuring-the-web dept.

ReadWriteWeb writes "IBM's Many Eyes app, a 'shared visualization and discovery' service, has been running for a month now. In this article two of the IBM researchers behind Many Eyes, Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda B. Viégas, showcase some of the best visualizations so far. They also talk about the future of 'social data analysis' on the Web. Wattenberg and Viégas believe that Many Eyes is not just social software, but 'societal-scale software.' They say that Many Eyes represents a break from conventional visualization research. Traditionally, computer scientists concentrate on scaling in terms of data, making visualizations work for bigger and bigger databases. IBM's agenda with Many Eyes is to scale the audience, not the data."

Submission + - Scientists say Louisiana has less than 10 years

Submitted by

editor.b

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @02:43PM

editor.b writes: "According to a new series by the Times-Picayune, south Louisiana has much less time than expected. Scientists say that coastal land is now disappearing at the rate of one football field every 45 minutes. In ten years or less New Orleans will be in the Gulf of Mexico."

Submission + - How dating sites REALLY make money... BLACKMAIL

Submitted by

Kashdin

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:58PM

Kashdin writes: "You read about 'hidden' items in EULAs and privacy policies all the time, but here's my current winner. Match.com's new site Chemistry site http://www.chemistry.com/ apparently has decided that they can make more money by blackmailing their users. I mean no one that is using a dating site bothers to read these, so why not just lay it all out there?

They start off all nice and pretty:
We at Match.com, L.P. ("we" or "Chemistry") have created this privacy policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to protecting your personal information and informing you about how we handle it.

So good, so far. Then they really cover their ass:

"This privacy policy only applies to transactions and activities in which you engage, and data gathered, on the Chemistry Website, Chemistry Messenger and double blind email communications between Chemistry members (collectively, the "Site") but does not apply to any other Website or offline point of contact between Chemistry, or any other company, and consumers."

Good to know that their privacy policy doesn't apply to the rest of the time one spends on the internet. Makes those lawyer fees almost worth it for catching this one!

Oh yeah, and if they decide to change the policy — "Each time you visit the Site or provide us with information, by doing so you are accepting the practices described in this privacy policy at that time."

Now we get to the fun stuff:

Information We Collect From You

In order to operate the Site and to provide you with information about products or services that may be of interest to you [READ AS "WE'RE GONNA SELL YOU PERSONAL INFORMATION TO ANYONE WE CAN THAT WILL PAY US MONEY TO SPAM YOU WITH PENIS PILLS AND HOT STOCK TIPS"], we may [THEY 'MAY' — YEAHHHH...JUST MAYBE..] collect "personal information" (i.e. information that could be used to contact you directly (without using the Site) such as full name, postal address, phone number or email address)[SO WE CAN EITHER CONTACT YOU TO LET YOU KNOW WE NEED MONEY OR WE'RE GONNA RELEASE THIS INFORMATION AT THE NEXT PATA MEETING — OR AT LEAST SELL THESE LISTS TO THE COMPANIES THAT ACTUALLY MAIL YOU CRAP]

You've probably seen similar terms before and just kind of 'chalked it up to the cost of registering with a site'. But these klowns go one better:

[We may collect]"financial information" (i.e. credit card numbers or passwords) [I SWEAR TO GOD THATS IN THERE]or "demographic information" (i.e. information that you submit, or that we collect, that is neither personal information nor financial information; [NOT JUST INFORMATION THAT YOU SUBMIT, BUT ALSO INFORMATION THAT THEY COLLECT?!]

"Please also be aware that when we disclose your financial information or personal information to a Co-Branded Company, as described above, we may also disclose to that Co-Branded Company your demographic information, on a non-anonymous basis" [OK THAT'S FAIR...AS LONG AS YOU TELL ME THAT I WILL HAVE OPTHER COMPANIES BLACKMAILING ME] ..."this may include, but is not limited to, zip code, postal code, hometown, gender, username, age/birth date, purchase history information, browsing history information, searching history information, registration history information, and the content of communications between you and other members over the Site) [PURCHASE HISTORY, BROWSING HISTORY, SEARCH HISTORY, THE CONTENT OF COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN ME AND OTHER MEMBERS!?!?!?]

OK.. So here's the Web 2.0 revenue model: blackmail. If they capture all this information, including my personal and financial information, they got me by the short hairs. Pay us or we release all this information to the public.

This is the way it could work:
If I 'communicate' this — "yeah that's about as funny as a child molester", then I will be posted to child molestation web sites, and my images and personal information will follow...UNLESS I PAY THEM!

If I 'communicate' the following: "That guy was so GAY it was funny" — then I need to pay them, or they will release my statements to the anti-gay discrimination watch list, and I will start go get gay sadomasochistic magazines in my mailbox for the neighbors to see.

Maybe this will happen, maybe it won't but the abuse potential is VERY HIGH.

Why can't I just make up a name and get a free email service, sign up to a dating service and have them hook me up with a bisexual billionaire nymphomaniac? Isn't THAT the dream of online dating sites?"

Submission + - Best Buy redefines "best"

Submitted by

Uknowwhoibe

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:49PM

Uknowwhoibe writes: "http://www.kantor.com/2007/03/03/best-buy-creates- scam-site-to-trick-customers/ So Best Buy was apparently caught red-handed screwing over its customers. George Gombossy of the Hartford Courant gets the major-league kudos for exposing this. (And Gnomic gets a hat tip from me for pointing it out!) See, Best Buy had a secret intranet it used to trick customers. Note that the word is intranet — that is, an internal Web site. According to Gombossy, if a customer went to a sales person and commented that he thought such-and-such an item was cheaper online, the sales guy would pull up a Web site that looked like the real Best Buy Web site, but was in fact an internal site where the prices were higher. ...even when one informs a salesperson of the Internet price, customers have been shown the intranet site, which looks identical to the Internet site, but does not always show the lowest price. Thus the sales guy could say something like, "Actually, sir, it's more expensive on the Web." You had to be the kind of person who would either A) print out the Web page and bring it in to the store, or B) check the price online when you got home. Based on what his office has learned, [Connecticut State Attorney General Richard] Blumenthal said, it appears the consumer has the burden of informing Best Buy sales people of the cheaper price listed on its Internet site, which he said "is troubling." Further, Best Buy had denied that such a site existed. What I want to know is, has Best Buy also created spoofs of its competitors' sites? That way, a sales guy could say, "Let's see what Circuit City has it for" and pull up a higher — but fake — price. That would make the customer think Best Buy had better prices, and the store could avoid matching a competitor's price. Hmm."

Submission + - Favorite Force Poll

Submitted by Miphnik on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:41PM

Miphnik writes: Favorite Force?

Strong

Weak

Electromagnetic

Gravity

Light Side

Dark Side

Brute

Submission + - Windows 2.0 era talk by Bill Gates with 640k

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:21PM

An anonymous reader writes: Back in 1989, Bill Gates came to talk to the students of the University of Waterloo on the early days of Microsoft, and the future of computing. It's an interesting blast to the past, as he touches on topics such as the VGA graphics, OS/2 and software piracy, as well as the now infamous 640K of memory. Lost for nearly two decades, the tape of the talk recently surfaced and is now available in a number of audio formats from the University of Waterloo Computer Science Club.

NASA Can't Pay for Killer Asteroid Hunt 398

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @12:11PM from the anyone-raid-the-coffee-fund-money dept.

CGISecurity.com writes "NASA officials say the space agency is capable of finding nearly all the asteroids that might pose a devastating hit to Earth, but there isn't enough money to pay for the task so it won't get done. 'We know what to do, we just don't have the money,' said Simon 'Pete' Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center." But hey, it's just the potential end of the world, so nothing much to worry about there.

Submission + - Big Radio Settles Payola Charges

Submitted by

vivaoporto

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @12:08PM

vivaoporto writes: "As seen on Forbes, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, the four broadcast conglomerates (Clear Channel Communications, CBS Radio, Entercom Communications and Citadel Broadcasting), which together own more than 1,500 stations, have agreed to pay hefty fines and to provide air time for local artists and independent record labels. as a settlement with the FCC. The radio chains, which didn't admit wrongdoing, are to pay a collective $12.5 million in fines and dedicate a total of 8,400 half-hour segments to independent music over the next three years. (Indie labels, for purposes of the settlement, are those not owned or controlled by one of the nation's four dominant music labels — Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and EMI Group)"

Journal Journal: Rocketeers Find Large Impact Crater In Nevada 29

Journal by SEWilco on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @11:54AM

While participating in amateur rocket launches in Black Rock Desert (Burning Man site), Ian Kluft KO6YQ noticed rocks with some oddities. Through the Internet he learned the characteristics of impact craters, then found some clues in photographs and Google Maps. Examining the area he got samples of rock with impact patterns in them and other evidence. Previous geological puzzles in the region are well explained as impact structures. Volunteers are finding peculiarities in satellite imagery

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