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Security

Submission + - Major conflict of interest between Firefox/Google? (news.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Firefox browser may not be as independent as previously thought. However, the open secret in the tech sector is that at the end of the day, Google calls the shots. When a pro-user security feature in the browser threatens Google's business model, it is the feature that is made to compromise — not the search engine. Google provides real-time updated blacklists for the Firefox Phishing Protection system. However, the company has whitelisted all of its own domain names while at the same time refusing to fix major security vulnerabilities reported to it by respected security researcher Robert "RSnake" Hansen. Can Google be trusted to run the phishing blacklists? Should Firefox go ahead with its plans to use Google's anti-malware blacklists in Firefox 3.0, or should the browser switch to the community-generated PhishTank blacklists? CNET has more on the story...
Mozilla

Submission + - Mozilla is recruiting for Operation Firefox. (operationfirefox.com)

Submitted by tradotto
tradotto writes: Enlighten Web users worldwide to the advantages of Firefox. Here's how it works: Submit a plan describing where, when and how you'll install your giant 3.5-foot Firefox FatheadTM sticker (What's this? See it.) Remember, the point is to place stickers in prominent, public places in interesting ways that will make people take notice and check out Firefox. The better your installation, the better our exposure.
Education

Submission + - Grad student suspended after pro-gun-rights e-mail

Submitted by fredklein
fredklein writes: A Minnesota university has suspended one of its graduate students who sent two e-mail messages to school officials supporting gun rights.
"Hamline University also said that master's student Troy Scheffler, who owns a firearm, would be barred from campus and must receive a mandatory "mental health evaluation" after he sent an e-mail message arguing that law-abiding students should be able to carry firearms on campus for self-defense."
When informed that suspending him violated the school's freedom of expression policy, the University changed their tune: Now they claim he's being suspended because of "anonymous allegations" they received, and they can't tell him (or the press) what those allegations are, or who his accusers are. With all the talk of 'Big Brother' throwing people into detention centers without knowing the charges, are we overlooking 'Little Brothers' closer to home?
Enlightenment

Submission + - Tracing IT's Past, Present and Future (cio.com)

Submitted by
Chris Lindquist
Chris Lindquist writes: "CIO.com has posted a collection of stories looking back on 20 years of IT history and predicting what may happen in the coming decades. In the futurist piece, Larry Niven predicts civil rights for applications and Grady Booch anticipates that building software-intensive systems will always be hard. Author Fred Hapgood has also created a two-decade timeline that connects the dots from the IBM's PS/2 to Apple's iPhone."
Microsoft

Submission + - SerNet asks Microsoft to disclose protocol (sernet.de)

Submitted by
Johannes Loxen
Johannes Loxen writes: "Following the Court judgment upholding the European Commission's anti-trust
decision:

SerNet asks Microsoft to disclose protocol definitions
—
In a September 26 letter to Microsoft Germany, SerNet transforms the
September 17 European Court judgment into a specific request:

By this judgment Microsoft is forced to publish protocol definitions for
Windows servers under "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" terms so that
fully interoperable software can be developed by other parties. The
deadline set by the Court is January 15th 2008. Microsoft accepted this
judgment.

Now SerNet asks Microsoft to disclose the protocol definitions for
use in developing the open source software Samba.

SerNet is the leading service company regarding Samba with offerings to
customers worldwide. The Samba Team is an international association of
software developers, working together on Samba — that is in principle an
implementation of the SMB/CIFS protocol for Linux/Unix and some other
operating systems.

Though relatively successful in achieving some degree of interoperability
with Microsoft Workgroup Server Protocols, Samba Team is still challenged
by
many problems arising from Microsoft's continuing lack of disclosure of
private extensions to the protocols in question. This is to say that Samba
has to improve the interoperability between Samba servers and Windows
servers. There is a project called "samba4AD" with a proposal that can be
accessed via ftp://ftp.sernet.de/pub/samba4AD.

The challenges in this project cannot be solved sufficiently without
protocol specifications from Microsoft. The 2004 Decision of the
Commission, recently upheld largely in its entirety by the Court of First
Instance makes it clear that Microsoft has the obligation to disclose those
protocols and unjustified refusal to do it amounts to an abuse of a
dominant position.

"It is of course crucial that Samba can be developed continuously under the
GPL in version 3," says Johannes Loxen, author of the letter on behalf of
SerNet, "Microsoft's programs MCPP and WSPP are not feasible regarding
Samba."

SerNet asks Microsoft to observe the same time limit as set by the European
Court, January 15th 2008.

While Samba is the most important free software alternative to Microsoft's
windows servers this is the opportunity to verify the result of the trial
by a dedicated request.

about Samba
—
Samba is an Open Source/Free Software suite that provides seamless file
and print services to SMB/CIFS clients. Samba is freely available under
the GNU General Public License, see http://www.samba.org./

about SerNet
—
SerNet is the leading Samba supporter, see http://www.sernet.com/
and http://enterprisesamba.com./

contact: Johannes Loxen
SerNet GmbH, Bahnhofsallee 1b, 37081 Goettingen
phone: +49-551-370000-0, fax: +49-551-370000-9
http://www.sernet.de/ mailto:EUcase@SerNet.DE"
Censorship

Submission + - Bloggers who risked all to reveal Junta in Burma 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Internet geeks share a common style, and Ko Latt and his four friends would not be out of place in cyber cafés across the world. They have the skinny arms and the long hair, the dark T-shirts and the jokey nicknames. But few such figures have ever taken the risks that they have in the past few weeks, or achieved so much in a noble and dangerous cause. Since last month Ko Latt, 28, his friends Arca, Eye, Sun and Superman, and scores of others like them have been the third pillar of Burma's Saffron Revolution. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2563937.ece
Security

Submission + - Deceptive file names under Vista (heise-security.co.uk)

Submitted by
devkhadka
devkhadka writes: "An Attackers can use Unicode character under Vista to conceal filenames and filename extensions. A demonstration by Max Ried makes an executable screen-saver file (.scr) look like a harmless image (.jpg).The display of the false filename is due to the inclusion of Unicode control characters that change the direction of writing. These are required for the Arabic language where writing runs from right to left. Unicode recognizes the control characters (PDF) right-to-left override (RLO, 202E) and left-to-right override (LRO, 202D) to switch the writing direction. more about this:
demonstration here"
The Courts

Submission + - Enderle Explains His Motivations Over SCO Affair (tgdaily.com)

Submitted by
CmdrGravy
CmdrGravy writes: "Anyone following the SCO saga from the beginning will probably be familiar with the writing of Rob Enderle who was in the early days a key supporter of SCOs claims. Now that SCO is heading swiftly towards bankruptcy and their claims have been completely debunked Rob has offered an explanation, if not an apology, of his involvement in this sorry affair.

You can read Robs explanation here yourselves.

What he seems to be saying is that his primary motivation for supporting SCO is a dislike of Linux supporters who attacked one of his articles written at about the same time as the SCO saga kicked off. Despite having some doubts about SCOs claims he felt he needed to stick up for them because on the one hand he though Linux supporters were a bunch of criminals and on the other he thought Groklaw was misleading people and misrepresenting the facts surrounding the case.

Whats missing from the article is any apology at all from Mr Enderle for failing to research his subject and calling the result so wrongly or any apology to Groklaw who were clearly not misrepresenting anything and predicted the actual result of the case perfectly."
Linux Business

Submission + - SCO, Linux and Rob Enderle

Submitted by Peter Kern
Peter Kern writes: With SCO laying flat on the floor, there are lots of open stories surrounding the Linux lawsuit story are also finding their conclusions. One of the more interesting side aspects of the whole SCO debacle was an article and a keynote of analyst Rob Enderle that put him in the midst of a firestorm and according to him, brought several death threats. The recent events prompted Enderle, just like Forbes' Dan Lyons, to recall the events from a few years ago and reflect on them from today's view. As Lyons, he also said that he was misled by SCO, but has some words for the Linux community as well. It's interesting read and teaches not just Enderle, but us all a lesson to step back and take a deep breath before making hasty judgments based on our emotions.
Linux Business

Submission + - PWC migrates to OpenBSD after crippling by Windows (computerworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by
Renegade88
Renegade88 writes: "After months of network failures and depleted IT budget, newly hired IT manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Japan was "forced" to migrate half of the company's Windows servers to OpenBSD to stabilize and secure their network. After eliminating the frequent downtime and data loss PWC had experienced for months, Mark Uemura was ordered to reinstate their Checkpoint firewall for political reasons. The Checkpoint server was later overwhelmed by a network virus so rather than taking it offline again, PWC placed an OpenBSD firewall in front of the Checkpoint Firewall! Mark's advice: "My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it — don't ask! [Management] will thank you later.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft struggling to gain endorsement for OOXML (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by Tri
Tri writes: The Open Source Industry of Australia (OSIA) has formally contacted Standards Australia, requesting that Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format not be endorsed by the body as an ISO standard.

  "Quite apart from the technical problems with OOXML, the main problem from OSIA's point of view is a substantive one — the 'standard' is designed so that it can only be implemented by a single vendor", said Brendan Scott, Director of Open Source Industry Australia. "So, while in theory a third party could create an independent implementation, in practice it is very unlikely", he said.
Software

Submission + - Another wave of Apple Software/Firmware updates (macscoop.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It appears that Apple's software development team is not taking holidays this summer as updates are still to raining. Among them, Aperture, Front Row, iPhoto, iMac Software and Mac Pro Firmware.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Xbox 360 Hardware Downfall (theweeklypixel.com)

Submitted by
fusiongt
fusiongt writes: "Microsoft recently announced that the Xbox 360 will be getting price cuts in North America. Effective August 8th, the Xbox 360 price cuts will be the following: Xbox 360 Elite Model: $449 Xbox 360 Standard: $349 Xbox 360 Core: $279. These price cuts have been rumored over the past few weeks so Im glad its finally out and officially announced. The price cuts are good news but instead of just announcing that, I wanted to inform people about what kind of product the 360 really is. I have some serious issues with the Xbox 360. My biggest problem with the 360 is that it isnt built very good and Microsoft seems extremely reluctant to do anything about it.

Read more here: http://www.theweeklypixel.com/editorials/xbox360/3 60-hardware-downfall.html"
Microsoft

Submission + - Top 5 Things About Vista That Still Suck

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Assessing the operating system 9 months after is release, InfoWeek has come up with what it thinks are the Top 5 Things About Windows Vista That Still Suck. The list ranges from the User Account Controls, which it says provide a false sense of security, to Microsoft's claims that 512-MB of memory is enough for adequate performance of Vista Home. Also on the list is poor performance of IE7, automated Windows Update, which pushes unwanted patches to unsuspecting users, and Vista's "Not Responding" messages when apps lock up. Do you think this is a fair list, and also what issues do you see as the big remaining Vista problems?

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