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Businesses

Submission + - Digital Trash More Valuable Than Gold, Copper Ore

Submitted by
tcd004
tcd004 writes: "Imagine sheer mountains of discarded Pentium III's, tractor trailers overflowing with discarded wall warts. Photojournalist Natalie Behring visited Guiyu, China and documented the world's biggest digital dump where, for $2 per day, the locals sort, disassemble and pulverize hundreds of tons of e-waste. The payoff is huge: computer waste contains 17 times more gold than gold ore, 40 times more copper than copper ore. But the detritus also leaches chemicals and metals into local water supplies."
Privacy

Submission + - Game Developer, "Hate Crimes" & Scient

Submitted by wintermute.turing.ai
wintermute.turing.ai writes: Canadian game developer "Zi-Xiao Liang" was recently questioned by Hamilton, Ontario police after a hate-crime complaint was made by a Toronto-based Scientology section, according to his post in the IGDA forums. The focus of the complaint was a game that Liang made for a class project in 2006 titled, "Scientology PWNED". The game consists of a gun-toting cartoon character that shoots other cartoon characters displaying the Scientology Cross on their foreheads. With the recent row with the BBC still ringing in the headlines one is left wondering: who will Scientologists target next?
The Courts

Submission + - Student on Myspace Jailed with $1 Million bail

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot previously covered the story of Allen Lee, the student jailed for writing a violent essay.
In similar events, A University of Southern Mississippi student remains jailed on a one-million dollar bail since April 18th for posting threating remarks to his myspace blog and bulletins. Athorities have been very quiet, and in an update from last week claim to still be collecting evidence.
Security

Submission + - A Step Backwards in Online Banking Security

Submitted by Gates82
Gates82 writes: I have recently been frustrated by "added security" questions on banking and credit card websites. It seems that all of these institutions are heading towards a regular login and a second (3rd or 4th) security question to be used as a second authentication or as verification to reset your primary password. These questions seem a step backwards in security; now all that it is required to reset my password on these sites is to know my user ID and then answer a simple question (ie. place of birth, date of birth, pets names, etc) with most of the answers being quite publicly available. Personally, I normally bash on the keyboard and click continue not caring what the answer is; assuming that it will be more difficult to crack then guessing fluffy as a pet name. But to make matters more unbearable I attempted to login to a credit card website and was greeted with a second login and it was requesting an answer to one of these (hit-head-on-keyboard) questions. It took two calls to get logged in and I am now forced to use a password for each security question in place of the real answer.

This process seems like a way for companies to deal with joe blow who forgets his password every month when he goes to make a payment. But how insecure is this for the rest of us who are comfortable with our password making/remembering capabilities?
Editorial

Submission + - MySpace photo sagas continue

Submitted by gwoodrow
gwoodrow writes: We've all heard the "fired because of myspace" issues, where a simple blog or picture gets someone canned. But even as it's getting worse, the targets are fighting back:

"Teacher in training Stacy Snyder was denied her education degree on the eve of graduation when Millersville University apparently found pictures on her MySpace page 'promoting underage drinking.' As a result, the 27-year-old mother of two had her teaching certificate withheld and was granted an English degree instead. In response, Snyder has filed a Federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania university asking for her education diploma and certificate along with $75,000 in damages."

The offending picture? A picture from halloween 2005 of Stacy in a pirate outfit drinking from a cup.
First Person Shooters (Games)

Submission + - Map your School

Submitted by
dzafez
dzafez writes: "In Response to the Slashdot article covering a Student getting kicked off of his
regular school (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/02/1 839251:

Even though, I don't ever play games anymore, I think this map should be published.
I would even go further, hell kids pick some good anon nicks with a anon e-mail address
and start sending me maps of your schools. I will host them on my german website.
(http:/www.dzafez.de)
Don't forget to let me know where (google maps) exactly the Highschool is, which
you rebuild. I will put that google maps link next to it. Also let me know, for
which game (version) this map is. I would love to see some older games as well.
If you do 3D rebuilds of your School in Autocat, Blender, VRML ... whatever 3D.

Bring it on, map at dzafez .de"
Privacy

Submission + - National ID card "a disaster in the making"

Submitted by
jdp
jdp writes: "Security experts Richard Forno and Bruce Schneier's CNET column describes Real ID as a disaster in the making, highlighting issues including vulnerability to identity theft from unscrupulous employees, flawed technologies, external compromises or human error; the risks of mission creep ("other homeland security initiatives, such as the Patriot Act, have been used and applied — some say abused — for purposes far removed from anything related to homeland security. How can we ensure the same will not happen with Real ID?"), and the important point about how Real ID makes the people who aren't eligible for it — or live in states that have rejected it into second-class citizens. Several of these points were also brought up at Tuesday's Town Hall meeting and webcast, as well as other concerns from DMV directors and employees, transgender people, seniors, and representatives from Gun Owners of America, American Friends Service Comittee, California Commision on the Status of Women, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, CDT, and EFF. A coalition of privacy, civil liberties, and consumer groups have launched a campaign to encourage public comments to DHS before the May 8 deadline. One thing to say for Real ID: it's certanly a unifying issue — at least for the opposition."
Businesses

Criminalizing The Consumer - Where DRM Went Wrong 75

Posted by Zonk from the a-long-long-time-ago dept.
][nTrUdEr writes "The Economist has posted an editorial on how DRM has gone wrong. What ostensibly began as a tool to ensure artists received due compensation for their work has been turned, and now criminalizes the consumer for wanting to use what they have purchased. 'Despite the number of iTunes downloaded for a fee, Apple would be in trouble if people were prevented from transferring legitimately owned CDs to their iPods. The software Apple gives away to iPod customers is designed to let them do just that. Most people think it ludicrous that they can't do the same with the DVDs they own. Now it seems, despite squeals from the movie industry, the law is finally moving in the video fan's favour. The issue in the recent case was whether Kaleidescape, a maker of digital "jukeboxes" that store a person's video and music collections and distribute the entertainment around the home, had breached the terms of the DVD Content Control Association's CSS (content scrambling system) license.'"
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Drops High School Student Deposition Case

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The Houston, Texas, case, UMG v. Hightower, in which the RIAA tried to subpoena a high school student for his deposition at 9:00 a.m., on a school day, on only 24 hours notice, has been abruptly dropped, according to court papers (pdf), which state that the dismissal is "without prejudice", meaning there's no guarantee it might not get started up again."
Security

Submission + - Anti-Spam CAPTCHA Inspired by Andy Warhol

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Tired of 'typing the garbled letters below' every time you create an online account or submit a comment? You might be done with scrambled letters quite soon, thanks to two students at Brigham Young University. Recent research has shown that computers are better than humans in filling out some forms of visual CAPTCHA. Inspired by this problem, the BYU students created a new form of visual CAPTCHA, bearing a striking resemblance to the postmodernistic works of Andy Warhol. To demonstrate the CAPTCHA, an interesting anti-spam app allows users to post their email address on their blog, webpage, social network, etc., without running the risk of having their email address spam-harvested. Visitors to the site/blog/etc must first successfully pass a CAPTCHA before being presented with the user's actual email address.

The Warhol Proof is available for use free of charge for any purpose at http://warproof.com.
User Journal

Journal Journal: What Life Comming To? 1

Journal by Rat_Hacker
Have you noticed the world has become a more violent and scary place then what it was when my mom was a child. I often find my self pondering as to why this may be... I mean I am not quite sure about the video game blame, I think that was made to be an easy way out of trouble and I personally call it "Blame Shifting" Why? Becuase they can't take the responsibility of their action. I mean induviduals should know that games are NOT real and that what is fun and able to be done in games usuall
The Internet

Submission + - Uk considering Cyber Crime Site

Submitted by Hennell
Hennell writes: Attempting to keep up with technology and technology related crimes is obviously a hard task, and whilst big companies can use the legal system if caught out, the average person doesn't always seem to have much methods for help. The UK's House of Lord's Science and Technology select committee, are considering a website where people can report incidents of cyber-crime.

From the article:
"One of the problems is that people who, for example, have been the victim of an eBay scam tend to think how stupid they were and that there is no point in going to police. If you were mugged you would be sure to go straight to the police," he said.
"In the UK, people are being told to go to their bank first. We are not sure that is right. These are crimes and the police should be equipped to deal with them," Lord Broers said.
United States

Submission + - Is America going fascist?

Submitted by
Random BedHead Ed
Random BedHead Ed writes: "The Guardian this week has a call to arms, examining the ten steps to fascism and proposing that America is quietly taking virtually all of them. It's not as much of a partisan concern as you might think: many conservative groups have joined forces under a new organization called the American Freedom Agenda, which along with the ACLU and Center for Constitutional Rights has been fighting to put pressure on the federal government to pull the country away from what they see as a slippery slope. From the article: "As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are "at war" in a "long war" — a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president — without US citizens realising it yet — the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.""

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