Ikonoclasm - Slashdot User

Chinese Pirates Copy iPhone, Make Improvements 716

Posted by Zonk on Friday August 10, 2007 @09:37AM from the that's-the-entrepreneurial-spirit dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Popular Science notes that manufacturers in China duplicate many well-know products. This includes the Apple iPhone, imitations of which are rolling off the assembly line already. That might actually be a good thing for some users, who might enjoy the user experience of China's own miniOne. 'It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn't. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers.' The cloned iPhone uses a Linux-based system. 'The cloners hire a team of between 20 and 40 engineers to begin decoding the circuit boards. At the same time, coders start to develop an operating system for the phone with a similar feature set. (The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system.)' Using the iPhone as an example, the PopSci site walks through the process of making imitation technology."

ATI Driver Flaw Exposes Vista Kernel to Attackers 248

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday August 10, 2007 @07:34AM from the sneaking-in dept.

Shack0ption writes "An unpatched flaw in an ATI driver was at the center of the mysterious Purple Pill proof-of-concept tool that exposed a way to maliciously tamper with the Windows Vista kernel. The utility, released by Alex Ionescu and yanked an hour later after the kernel developer realized that the ATI driver flaw was not yet patched, provided an easy way to load unsigned drivers onto Vista — effectively defeating the new anti-rootkit/anti-DRM mechanism built into Microsoft's newest operating system. Ionescu confirmed his tool was exploiting a vulnerability in an ATI driver — atidsmxx.sys, version 3.0.502.0 — to patch the kernel to turn off certain checks for signed drivers. This meant that a malicious rootkit author could essentially piggyback on ATI's legitimately signed driver to tamper with the Vista kernel."

Submission + - Porn to be blocked by Australian Goverment (news.com.au)

Submitted by wallior on Thursday August 09, 2007 @11:02PM

wallior writes: In a bid to swing voters, John Howard is promising $189 million (AU) on 'cleaning up the internet'. Blocking pornography, removing terror sites and scouring MySpace and Facebook for online predators. Also included will be free internet blocking tools available for all families. The presentation was primarily aimed at Christian voters.

"...the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source..."

Submission + - 30 things I've learned from using Linux ... (zdnet.com)

Submitted by BBQ-buster on Thursday August 09, 2007 @07:01PM

BBQ-buster writes: ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has an interesting article called "30 things I've learned from using Linux ..." where a long-time Windows user discusses some of the things that he's learned from dabbling with Linux for a few months.

1. That I don't have to pay money to get my hands on a credible operating system.
2. There are far more Linux distros available that I have time to try them out.
3. Switching to Linux does not mean trouble-free computing.
4. Whenever you ask a Linux user which is the best distro, invariably the answer you'll get is the name of the distro that they're using.
5. In my opinion, the best Linux distro is Ubuntu.
6. No matter how much I like a GUI, and no matter how lazy years of using Windows made me, there's a lot to be said for using a command line.

Overall it's a very positive Linux article that should inspire others to give Linux a go.

Submission + - $ China threatens 'nuclear option' - To crash the (sloopo.com)

Submitted by

sloopo

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @09:41AM

sloopo writes: "Described as China's "nuclear option" in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels. It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds. Read the full story, click here"

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