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Submission + - Get off my lawn (philly.com)

Submitted by Registered Coward v2
Registered Coward v2 writes: Identifying a nerd was easier years ago — calculator on the belt and a box of Hollerith cards. Part computer program, part note card, and part bookmark, they were a readily available source of nerd badges at any campus. As with many tech icons, they have drifted into oblivion.

So what do you do if:

you got a new computer, or maybe a software upgrade, only to find — error message! — that some of your old files are incompatible.

and the files you have are valuable historical data needed for current research? How about finding a USB compatible Hollerith card reader?

Submission + - Wikipedia and the War on Sockpuppets (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Wikipedia editors are actively engaged in a wide-ranging battle against PR firms attempting to edit the crowdsourced encyclopedia’s entries to reflect their clients’ best interests. Over the past couple weeks, those Wikipedia editors have isolated several hundred user accounts linked to people “paid to write articles on Wikipedia promoting organizations or products,” according to Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia’s operations. Those users’ accounts violate Wikipedia’s guidelines, “including prohibitions against sockpuppetry and undisclosed conflicts of interest.” Some 250 suspicious user accounts have already been nuked. Correcting biased text is a thankless job for those Wikipedia editors—the literary-world equivalent of killing endless hordes of zombies approaching your protective fence. But that job gets even harder when a PR agency deploys dozens, or even hundreds of writers to systematically adjust clients’ Wikipedia pages. While Gardner didn’t mention the names of such agencies in her statement, The Daily Dot cited a firm named Wiki-PR that brags on its Website about its skill in building client-friendly Wikipedia pages. “We build, manage and translate Wikipedia pages for over 12,000 people and companies,” is one of its advertising slogans. Other services include “crisis editing” and “concept development.” Wiki-PR has not yet responded to Slashdot’s request for comment, and the firm’s Twitter page is now locked. And therein lies the downside of crowdsourcing: it’s great to have a million people building something for you, but not all those hands and minds are necessarily working in your actual best interest. Whether or not Wiki-PR sticks around, other PR firms are surely doing their best to change online history.

Submission + - Thanks, Science! Treating your baldness by growing new hair now made possible (columbia.edu)

Submitted by trendspotter
trendspotter writes: In what seems to be a science breakthrough US researchers at Columbia University's Medical Center (CUMC) are developing the world's first real hair regeneration method. Rather than simply redistributing existing hair from one part of the skin to another, they are using the patient’s own cells to grow completely new hair to treat female hair loss and male baldness.

Submission + - Most IT workers DON'T have STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Math) degrees (wsj.com)

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: The Wall Street Journal's Michael Totty shares some stereotype-shattering statistics about IT workers: Most of them don't have college degrees in computer science, technology, engineering or math. About a third come to IT with degrees in business, social sciences or other nontechnical fields, while more than 40% of computer support specialists and a third of computer systems administrators don't have a college degree at all!

The analysis is based upon two job categories as defined by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics: network and computer systems administrator, and computer support specialist.

Submission + - Obamacare Website violates GPL (weeklystandard.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to the Weekly Standard, the troubled Healthcare Marketplace website (www.healthcare.gov) uses code from DataTables.net, dual-licensed under GPL 2 or a BSD license, without attribution, even going so far as to remove the copyright notice. While the effort is undoubtedly a complex software engineering project, the lack of scruples is only slightly more troubling that the engine was designed by a company that apparently didn't realize that client-side code is easy to examine.

Submission + - How to FIx Healthcare.GOV: Go Open-Source! (businessweek.com) 1

Submitted by McGruber
McGruber writes: Over at Bloomberg Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-16/open-source-everything-the-moral-of-the-healthcare-dot-gov-debacle), Paul Ford explains that the debacle known as ealthcare.gov makes clear that it is time for the government to change the way it ships code: namely, by embracing the open source approach to software development that has revolutionized the technology industry.

Submission + - Windows 8 Apps Will Run and Sync on Xbox One

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: If you’ve been following the news closely, then you probably know that Microsoft hinted towards the fact that Windows 8 apps will run on the upcoming Xbox One gaming console. We didn’t see any official information yet, probably because the Redmond company is keeping this for the official launch of the Xbox One that is scheduled for November. But it seems that DELL made a small (or big?) mistake by accidentally confirming this on its promotional page for Xbox One accessories, saying the following — "With all your favorite Windows 8 apps able to be run on and synced to your Xbox One". What do you think — could this really happen and will this be useful?

Submission + - Huawei Using NSA Scandal to Turn Tables on Accusations of Spying (slashdot.org) 2

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom giant banned from selling to U.S. government agencies due to its alleged ties to Chinese intelligence services, is trying to turn the tables on its accusers by offering itself as a safe haven for customers concerned that the NSA has compromised their own IT vendors. “We have never been asked to provide access to our technology, or provide any data or information on any citizen or organization to any Government, or their agencies,” Huawei Deputy Chairman Ken Hu said in the introduction to a 52-page white paper on cybersecurity published Oct. 18. Huawei was banned from selling to U.S. government entities and faced barriers to civilian sales following a 2012 report from the U.S. House of Representatives that concluded Huawei’s management had not been forthcoming enough to convince committee members to disregard charges it had given Chinese intelligence services backdoors into its secure systems and allowed Chinese intelligence agents to pose as Huawei employees. But the company promises to create test centers where governments and customers can test its products and inspect its services as part of an “open, transparent and sincere” approach to questions about its alleged ties, according to a statement in the white paper from Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei. Can Huawei actually gain more customers by playing off the Snowden scandal?

Submission + - Scientology's fraud conviction upheld in France (telegraph.co.uk)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: France's top appeals court has upheld a fraud conviction and fines totaling hundreds of thousands of euros against the Church of Scientology, for taking advantage of vulnerable followers.

France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion, and had prosecuted individual Scientologists before, but the 2009 trial marked the first time the organisation as a whole had been convicted.

Submission + - Poll: Which 3-letter organization would you LEAST want a visit from?

Submitted by CyberSlugGump
CyberSlugGump writes: Idea for a poll: Which 3-letter organization would you LEAST want a visit from?

BSA (the software one)
CDC (the disease one)
CIA (the inelligence one)
DEA (the drug one)
EPA (the environment one)
FBI (the bureau one)
IRS (the revenue one)
NSA (S != Snowden one)
LDS (the saints one)
SEC (the exchange one)

Submission + - Starbucks wi-fi more secure than Pentagon network (abc.net.au)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Using the wi-fi connection at Starbucks was a better bet than risking putting confidential defense documents on a glitch-prone Pentagon computer network, a senior US defense chief says.

The internet link at the local Starbucks was "the best bad option that we had," Air Force Colonel Karen Mayberry told the judge at the trial of five prisoners charged with plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks. Defense lawyers have asked the judge to halt pre-trial hearings in the death penalty case of the alleged plotters at the Guantanamo Bay US naval base until the computer system can be fixed to ensure that outsiders cannot access confidential defense documents.

Col Mayberry ordered her team of lawyers to stop putting sensitive documents on that system in April, citing their ethical obligation to protect confidentiality. The lawyers have since been using personal computers to email documents from coffee shops and hotel lobbies.

Where have my trillions been going over the past decade?

Submission + - IE6 Finally Falls Under 5% Market Share 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The latest market share numbers from Net Applications show Internet Explorer was the biggest winner last month. Between August and September, IE gained 0.19 percentage points (from 57.60 percent to 57.79 percent), Firefox slipped 0.22 percentage points (from 18.80 percent to 18.58 percent), and Chrome dipped 0.02 percentage points (from 16.00 percent to 15.98 percent). IE6 slipped a huge 1.22 percentage points to 4.86 percent. This means it has finally fallen below the 5 percent mark, which we weren’t expecting till sometime later this year. Microsoft itself confirms the milestone occurred during September 2013.

Submission + - How to turn off Slashdot Auto-Refresh? 4

Submitted by Futurepower(R)
Futurepower(R) writes: Slashdot's Auto-Refresh is annoying. I go to another window to do something, and when I come back, what I was reading is not there!

How do I turn Auto-Refresh off?

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