baboonlogic - Slashdot User

Submission + - Livejournal Bans 500+ Journals for "Pedophliia

Submitted by

illuminatedwax

on Wednesday May 30, 2007 @08:40AM

illuminatedwax writes: "When online watchdog group Warriors For Innocence began reporting journals and communities whose content involved pedophilia or incest to LiveJournal, they responded that the communities were not breaking any actual Terms of Service and therefore couldn't be deleted. The watchdog group then sent LiveJournal an open letter. LiveJournal then deleted over 500 communities whose listed interests could be related to pedophilia (such as "incest"). Some of the deleted groups include accounts for role-playing characters that were entirely fictional, fandom communities for fictional pedophilia (e.g. Harry Potter slash), support groups for survivors of incest or child abuse, and even a Spanish journal devoted to the discussion of the Russian novel Lolita by Nabokov. There were also a handful of what legitimately appeared to be predatory journals shut down as well. LiveJournal users have responded by warning fellow users, writing the Warriors of Innocence (reply), and moving to other journal hosting sites such as GreatestJournal. The Warriors of Innocence are maintaining that they did not intend for most of these journals to be deleted, and LiveJournal is already replying to some users. What should LiveJournal's responsibility be in keeping their site free from predators?"

Submission + - Bush administration proposes retroactive immunity

Submitted by quanticle on Friday May 04, 2007 @10:24PM

quanticle writes: The government has proposed giving retroactive immunity to telephone companies for giving personal data to the government, even if such requests are later found to be illegal.

Submission + - Matt Boyd Deemed a Terrorist Threat

Submitted by CaptainCarrot on Friday May 04, 2007 @09:43PM

CaptainCarrot writes: Writer/IT contractor Matt Boyd, formerly the man who made up the words for webcomic Mac Hall and who now does the same for his and Ian McConville's new comic Three Panel Soul, was recently fired from his government job. His conversation with a co-worker about a gun he intended to buy for target shooting was overheard by someone in a nearby cubicle. As it was unfortunately the day of the Virginia Tech shootings, the eavesdropper panicked and reported him to management.

That was bad enough. But when he used the comic to document the meeting where the reason for his firing was explained, he was visited by representatives of local law enforcement investigating him on suspicion of making a "terroristic threat" using the Internet. No charges have been filed. Yet.

Matt's interview at FLEEN about the incident is online.

Submission + - Harvard Law Prof Urges University to Fight RIAA

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Thursday May 03, 2007 @09:04PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Distinguished Harvard University Law School Professor Charles Nesson has called upon Harvard University to fight back against the RIAA and stand up for its students: "Students and faculty use the Internet to gather and share knowledge now more than ever....Yet "new deterrence and education initiatives" from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) threaten access to this vibrant resource. The RIAA has already requested that universities serve as conduits for more than 1,200 "pre-litigation letters." Seeking to outsource its enforcement costs, the RIAA asks universities to point fingers at their students, to filter their Internet access, and to pass along notices of claimed copyright infringement. But these responses distort the University's educational mission....... One can easily understand why the RIAA wants help from universities in facilitating its enforcement actions against students who download copyrighted music without paying for it. It is easier to litigate against change than to change with it. If the RIAA saw a better way to protect its existing business, it would not be threatening our students, forcing our librarians and administrators to be copyright police, and flooding our courts with lawsuits against relatively defenseless families without lawyers or ready means to pay. We can even understand the attraction of using lawsuits to shore up an aging business model rather than engaging with disruptive technologies and the risks that new business models entail...... But mere understanding is no reason for a university to voluntarily assist the RIAA with its threatening and abusive tactics. Instead, we should be assisting our students both by explaining the law and by resisting the subpoenas that the RIAA serves upon us. We should be deploying our clinical legal student training programs to defend our targeted students......""

Submission + - Wikipedia Bans HD-DVD Encryption Key

Submitted by on Tuesday May 01, 2007 @11:46PM

An anonymous reader writes: Much like Digg, Wikipedia is deleting edits to pages that include the key. They've even locked down the HD-DVD so that users can't edit it. How many more web sites will be brainwashed into believing that a number can be copyrighted?

Submission + - Indian project shows solar power affordable - U.N

Submitted by sas-dot on Sunday April 29, 2007 @10:07PM

sas-dot writes: A solar power project in India supplying electricity to 100,000 people will be widened to other developing nations after showing that clean energy can be cheaper than fossil fuels, a U.N. report said on Sunday. BBC News says that the $1.5m project, led by the UN Environment Programme (Unep), supports Indian bankers who offer finance to people who want to purchase a unit. The sunlight-powered systems are used to light homes and shops instead of expensive and polluting kerosene lamps. Officials hope to expand the scheme to Tunisia, China, Ghana and Indonesia. Before the UN project was set up, purchases were predominately cash only — making the devices too expensive for most people. The Indian Loan Programme helps its bank partners offer lower interest rates, longer payback periods and smaller deposits. "This project removes one of the main barriers to the shift to solar power — lack of financing," said Jyoti Painuly, a UN senior energy planner. "Asking customers... to pay cash for solar systems meant asking them to pay upfront an amount equal to 20 years of electricity bills." In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the UN says a single wick lamp each year burns about 80 litres of kerosene, which produces more than 250kg of carbon dioxide. An estimated 100 million families in India use kerosene lamps.

Submission + - Woman Denied Teaching Degree Over MySpace Photo

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 29, 2007 @12:19AM

An anonymous reader writes: A woman was denied a teaching degree by Pennsylvania based Millersville University at the last minute, due to a "Drunken Pirate" photo of her on her own MySpace page. According to the story, even though Ms. Snyder received "competent" or "superior" ratings in her final student-teacher evaluation, she was ultimately denied the teaching degree. Conestoga Valley High School threatened to no longer accept student-teachers from Millersville University if Ms. Snyder went unpunished for her "Drunken Pirate" photo.

Submission + - Google censors user-generated content in Brazil

Submitted by

airshowfan

on Wednesday March 14, 2007 @01:27AM

airshowfan writes: "Imagine that every time you wrote something on Blogger that the Chinese government disagreed with, China's courts could fine Google China and Google had to delete your post and give your IP address to the Chinese police. This is basically how Google runs Orkut, a social-networking site it owns, and by far the most widely-used social-networking site in Brazil, with over twice as many users as Facebook. Not only does Google get rid of any user-generated content on Orkut that Brazil's courts dislike, they have given the Brazilian police admin access, including the ability to censor content and to find your IP address. And this is despite the fact that all of Orkut's data is hosted in the US!"

Submission + - What Constitutes OpenID 'support'?

Submitted by

new-black-hand

on Tuesday March 13, 2007 @12:55PM

new-black-hand writes: "Recently some companies, including the likes of AOL and Microsoft, amongst others, have come out with support for OpenID. Supporters of OpenID were all happy to hear about these announcements, and generally these companies were praised for their adoption of the open identity format. It turns out though, that most of these recent announcements and updates have been about applications becoming providers of OpenID identities, rather than consumers of OpenID. There haven't been any significant updates recently to the list of applications that support OpenID. This story talks about how we are now stuck with millions of OpenID accounts that have nowhere new to go, and attempts to outline the criteria for what an application that supports OpenID should look like."

Submission + - Microsoft attacks Google on Copyright

Submitted by on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @04:43AM

An anonymous reader writes: The Financial Times reports that Microsoft is attacking Google on copyright. It appears that in an attempt to differentiate itself from Google, Microsoft is portraying itself as more sympathetic to copyright holders. Microsoft stated that Google's decision to take copies of books unless publishers tell it not to "systematically violates copyright, deprives authors and publishers of an important avenue for monetising their works and, in doing so, undermines incentives to create".

Submission + - Roundup of 10 Sim Game

Submitted by

mikemuch

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @03:11AM

mikemuch writes: "Loyd Case has gathered the latest yokes, throttles, pedals, and steering wheel controllers from the likes of CH Products, Logitech, Microsoft, and Saitek, and takes them for spins in Flight Simulator X, GTR2, and the lesser-known Combat Flight Simulator 3 and space-combat sim called Starshatter: The Gathering Storm. The article gives some advice on what controllers you need to be using to fully enjoy these sim programs — within a non-astronomical budget."

Submission + - Microsoft Attacks Google on Copyright

Submitted by

loid_void

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @02:01AM

loid_void writes: "In remarks prepared for delivery on Tuesday to the Association of American Publishers, New York Tims reports that the associate general counsel of Microsoft, Thomas Rubin, argues that Google's move into new media markets has come at the expense of publishers of books, videos and software. Mr. Rubin's comments echo arguments at the heart of a 16-month-old copyright lawsuit against Google brought by five book publishers and organized by the Association of American Publishers, an industry trade group. David Drummond, Google's senior vice president for corporate development and its chief legal officer, said in response that Google worked with more than 10,000 publishing partners to make books searchable online and had recently added the BBC and N.B.A. as YouTube video partners."

Submission + - Americans more approving of terrorism than Muslims

Submitted by

Flo

on Saturday February 24, 2007 @02:27PM

Flo writes: "[Sorry for the double-submission... I forgot the link *blush*] An interesting study shows how misleading common prejudices can be:

[...] 46 percent of Americans think that "bombing and other attacks intentionally aimed at civilians" are "never justified," while 24 percent believe these attacks are "often or sometimes justified."
[...]Do these findings mean that Americans are closet terrorist sympathizers?
Hardly. Yet, far too often, Americans and other Westerners seem willing to draw that conclusion about Muslims.
"

Submission + - Google launches hosted Apps for the enterprise

Submitted by Rob on Thursday February 22, 2007 @05:48AM

Rob writes: Search giant Google will today launch is much anticipated attack on Microsoft's desktop applications monopoly with the delivery of a hosted applications service for enterprises. Google Apps Premier Edition brings together the company's email, calendaring, instant messaging and voice over IP applications with its word processing and spreadsheet functionality and email for mobile devices. It is available as hosted service costing $50 per account per year, and also offers 10GB of storage per user, application programming interfaces for business integration, and 99.9% uptime guarantees, as well as 24-hour, seven-day support, and Google's advertising tunred off by default.

Crashing an In-Flight Entertainment System 322

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday February 21, 2007 @12:27AM from the stress-testing dept.

rabblerouzer writes "Hugh Thompson, who was interviewed by Slashdot on the dangers of e-voting, now has a cool blog entry on how he was able to bring down the gaming/movie console on an airplane. He calls it one of the most interesting examples of a software 'abuse case' he has ever seen." Fortunately the IFE system is totally disjoint from the avionics.

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