Submission + - ISIS Lab Fixes Computer Security! (poly.edu)
An anonymous reader writes: NYU-Poly's ISIS lab has teamed up with tech giants to once and for all solve the problem of computer security. Expect more news to follow!
Submission + - Defcad.org seized, shut down (defcad.org) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Defcad has been shut down. The Defcad/Defensedistributed crowd has been indicted on multiple counts which can be viewed at defcad.org.
Submission + - Quick, somebody tell SCO! More patent trolling on UNIX (theregister.co.uk) 2
donak writes: "It seems SCO has competition : A company registered in minor league tax haven the Cook Islands, but with a subsidiary in Delaware, lawyers in the patent-troll heaven of East Texas and an office in Sydney, Australia, has asserted intellectual property rights over all versions of Unix and “Unix-like derivatives” and plans to seek royalties from every company that has ever used the operating system.
Quoting the "anonymous spokesperson" : “It's clear that some far-sighted Unix pioneer created this daemon even though it has only become useful in the last few years,” he said, “That the insight is significant is obvious from the fact the code has been copied not only throughout Unix but into the Windows code stream via NT, and Apple's world via BSD. It appears to us that NSFW is also present throughout the code base of every significant Linux distribution,” he added."
Quoting the "anonymous spokesperson" : “It's clear that some far-sighted Unix pioneer created this daemon even though it has only become useful in the last few years,” he said, “That the insight is significant is obvious from the fact the code has been copied not only throughout Unix but into the Windows code stream via NT, and Apple's world via BSD. It appears to us that NSFW is also present throughout the code base of every significant Linux distribution,” he added."
Submission + - Indies Grab the Controls at Game Developers Conference (nytimes.com)
RougeFemme writes: Indies beat out mainstream studios for most of the Game Developers Choice Awards. "FTL: Faster Than Light", an independent game financed by a Kickstarter campaign, won the award for Best Debut. Because of the growing success of the indies, Eric Zimmerman, game designer and instructor at the NYU Game Center, is cancelling the Game Design Challenge that he's held at the conference for the last 10 years. “The idea of doing strange, bizarre, experimental games is no longer strange, bizarre or experimental.”
Submission + - Fairy penguins send first email (itnews.com.au)
An anonymous reader writes: Australian researchers have successfully connected a Tasmanian colony of fairy penguins to the internet. The research effort was part of the Interspecies Internet initiative, promoted by Google's chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf and former Genesis lead singer Peter Gabriel in a TED talk earlier this year.
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Explaining to my girlfriend that humans didn't ride dinosaurs (dinosaurc14ages.com) 4
p00kiethebear writes: "Dear Slashdot. Remember when you learned that Santa Clause wasn't real? I have a wonderful and beautiful girlfriend. She treats me so right in every way. We've been together for almost a year now and everything seemed to be going perfectly until this morning. Over breakfast we were discussing dinosaurs and she told me a story about how her grandfather, fifty years ago, dated footprints of a dinosaurs and a man that were right next to each other to be within the same epoch of history. I laughed when she said this and then realized that she wasn't joking. She seriously believes this. She believes dinosaurs and humans walked at the same time together. Her grandfather told her this when she was little so regular logic and wiki isn't going to be able to contest her childhood dreams that she has been raised to believe. The odd thing is that she's not religious, it's just what her archeologist grandfather taught her. More important than just backing up evidence to the contrary, how do I explain this to her without crushing her childhood dreams? Is it even worth discussing it further with her? Have you ever had a loved one or family member that believed something that made you uncomfortable?"
Submission + - 10 geeky and foolish ways to celebrate April Fools' Day (networkworld.com)
alphadogg writes: April Fools' Day has become increasingly geeky, since the Web, cameras and other high-tech tools make it so much easier to prank people, and with the nonstop leadership of companies like Google. http://www.networkworld.com/slideshow/93495/googles-famous-follies-10-favorite-april-fools-gags-and-easter-eggs.html Here's a roundup of ways to make the most of your April 1.
Submission + - Open Sauce Foundation; Freedom From The Condiments of Intellectual Tyranny (sharpenedsticks.com)
TekTek writes: "In response to the growing proliferation of the use of “secret sauce” as a vehicle for entrepreneurs’, venture capitalists’, and investment bankers’ thinly veiled proprietary machinations, a global consortium of premium condiment manufacturers has launched the Open Sauce Foundation (OSF). Founding members include McIlhenny Company (producer of Tabasco brand pepper sauce), Huy Fong Foods (producer of “Rooster Brand” Sriracha sauce), and Kikkoman (producer of Kikkoman brand Soy Sauce). The new foundation’s stated aim is not only to uphold the virtues of buying worthy sauce manufacturers’ products, but to demonstrate to the tech, financial, and media communities that “Open” companies, and condiments, can, and do, assume leadership roles in their respective markets."
NetWare 3.12 Server Taken Down After 16 Years of Continuous Duty 187
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica's Peter Bright reports on a Netware 3.12 server that has been decommissioned after over 16 years of continuous operation. The plug was pulled when noise from the server's hard drives become intolerable. From the article: 'It's September 23, 1996. It's a Monday. The Macarena is pumping out of the office radio, mid-way through its 14 week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, doing little to improve the usual Monday gloom...Sixteen and a half years later, INTEL's hard disks—a pair of full height 5.25 inch 800 MB Quantum SCSI devices—are making some disconcerting noises from their bearings, and you're tired of the complaints. It's time to turn off the old warhorse.'"
Comment In traffic, a VW will get me someplace (Score 4, Insightful) 749
as fast as a Ferrari.
Since I do most of my listening in a car, and am almost 48, I can't hear the difference between an mp3 and a vinyl album, or a cd, most of the time. Well, except for the lack of skipping. Ever try to listen to an LP in a moving car? But I digress. Sure, people who are younger and $pend lot$ of dollar$ on the Finest Audiophile equipment areound can tell. Me in my Chevy? Not so much.
Submission + - Microsoft releases the 2012 Law Enforcement Requests Report (sulia.com)
wiredog writes: Microsoft has released a report of all the subpoenas and other requests it got from law enforcement in 2012, and the way it responded to them. This is similar to the Google Transparency Report at
https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US/
https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/US/
Submission + - Storm brewing over Weather Channel's bid for ".weather" TLD (washingtonpost.com)
wiredog writes: From the Capital Weather Gang blog comes the story of the various people and organizations objecting to the Weather Channel's attempt to grab ".weather" for themselves.
I don't know why they would try, since they don't actually do weather forecasting anymore. Just one reality show after another.
I don't know why they would try, since they don't actually do weather forecasting anymore. Just one reality show after another.
Comment If Microsoft was Battletoads (Score 0) 207
I nominate this for nerd meme of 2013. If slashdot was battletoads. If the republican national convention was battletoads. If shopping at Wal-Mart was battletoads. And then all those of us who never played it will have to make friends with gamefaqs all over again to understand WTF everyone is talking about.
I'm in.
If Microsoft was Battletoads, it would be like the rat army working for a chair-throwing Big Blag.
Comment Late-Breaking News from the Council: REMAIN CALM (Score 4, Funny) 150
Late-breaking news from the Council: REMAIN CALM.
Panic and hysteria swept our world today upon the discovery of an inbound cometary body with a non-zero impact probability.
K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, addressed a terrified world:
"Podmates and citizens, we believe this object to rate, at most a 1 or a 2 on the Q'nirot scale, and expect further observations to eliminate the possibility of a collision. There is cause for continued observation, but at present there is no cause for alarm."
"We believe this potential impactor to be a routine and natural phenomenon, not a hostile threat from the Blueworlders. For one thing, is approaching from the direction away from the Blue World, from a region that even their invasion fleets have yet to control. Furthermore, it has recently been demonstrated that the Blueworlders, despite the technological terrors they have sent to our world, remain utterly incapable of deflecting inbound asteroids and comets. Unlike our illustirous Planetary Defense Forces, the blueworlders lack the technology to do anything about an inbound impactor."
"A solid planetary defense is the right of every being in every technologically-advanced civilization. As the Blueworlders have so recently discovered the hard way, conquest and empire sometimes need to take a back seat to the basic tools that constitute civilization."
When a junior reporter suggested that EVERYBEING PANIC ANYWAYS, the Speaker concluded his remarks:
"For decades, junior reporters have been making proposals to this council that begin with 'we have to fight the blueworlders over there before we have to fight them over here', and today marks the day where they can finally put their gelsacs where their mouths are."
The reporter's gelsacs were then mounted on the impactor unit of the the kinetic kill vehicle that remains the Planetary Defense Force's third and last line of defense.
Submission + - Supreme Court Approves Search Warrants Issued by Dogs (reason.com)
Entropy98 writes: "Today the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that "a court can presume" an alert by a drug-sniffing dog provides probable cause for a search.
The Supreme Court has not yet issued a ruling in Florida v. Jardines, the other drug dog case it heard last October. Jardines raises the question of whether police need a warrant to use a drug-sniffing dog at the doorstep of a home.
The police can now search anyone anywhere as long as their dog "alerts". Soon coming to your front door as well."
The Supreme Court has not yet issued a ruling in Florida v. Jardines, the other drug dog case it heard last October. Jardines raises the question of whether police need a warrant to use a drug-sniffing dog at the doorstep of a home.
The police can now search anyone anywhere as long as their dog "alerts". Soon coming to your front door as well."
