Fox_1 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Internet Watch Foundation Awareness Day

Submitted by Fox_1 on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @02:07PM

Fox_1 writes: Today(Oct.24) is Internet Watch Foundation Awareness Day, and unlike many organizations that are involved in Filtering and Censorship activities, these guys are worth your support. Their mission is to minimise the availability of potentially illegal internet content, specifically:

child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world
criminally obscene content hosted in the UK
incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the UK

They are a charity which really only has substantive power in UK, but their mission is good and achieving results though they are facing an uphill battle. Let's raise some awareness and think about what we can do to keep the net from being used for evil.

Submission + - Dutch government launches "Open Doc Society

Submitted by

vikingpower

on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @08:51AM

vikingpower writes: "Dutch site Webwereld http://www.webwereld.nl/ just came with the announcement that "...with a joint button push, followed by bombastic (sic ) tones from "2001: A Space Odyssey", Secretary of State Heemskerk en ODF-founder Patrick Durusau yesterday officially launched the OpenDoc Society". Presumably a substantial amount of Dutch taxpayer's money has been used for this launch.

OpenDoc Society http:www.opendocsociety.org is battling for the introduction and acceptance of Open Document Format ( ODF ), soon to be used by all of Dutch government services. Can we conclude that enlightened countries like The Netherlands are finally throwing off vendor's gags and handcuffs ?"

Submission + - South Africa adopts ODF as Government standard. (tectonic.co.za)

Submitted by eugene_roux on Wednesday October 24, 2007 @08:37AM

eugene_roux writes: Tectonic reports:

The ODF standard is included in the government's Mininimum Interoperability Standards for Information Systems in government (MIOS) released yesterday.

In the foreword to the document, department of public service and administration minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, says that "this updated version of MIOS contains an explicit definition of open standards as well as the inclusion of the ISO Open Document Format".

Submission + - College Team Builds a Solar Powered Hot Tub (bpsolardecathlon.com)

Submitted by

bpsolardecathlon

on Friday October 19, 2007 @02:54PM

bpsolardecathlon writes: "Student teams from 20 colleges are competing in the 2007 Solar Decathlon to build the most interesting & efficient alternative energy powered house. We're blogging live from the event, and sum it up with the top 5 coolest ideas including a solar powered hot tub and insulation made from blue jeans."

Submission + - School taking action against Network freedom 1

Submitted by

Tristan Stillwell

on Monday October 15, 2007 @06:10PM

Tristan Stillwell writes: "I am a teenage high school student in the municipality of Bunn, North Carolina.
Today I found out I was suspended from school for ten days for possessing programs that were "capable of doing damage to the private school network". The programs were Firefox Portable and VNC viewer, and BlueJ Java Development Environment. I, an 18 year old high school student, was informed through my aunt, who was called about this disciplinary problem ( Isn't this private information?). I have no chance to appeal this suspension and are being forcefully and permanently removed from my Java(c) Computer Science and US government and Politics courses which I was taking through the state. I will most likely receive grades of ZERO (0) for both classes, thus destroying any chance I ever have of getting into a decent college. I am initially receiving a 10 day suspension, and then possibly a longer suspension pending investigation. Note- the school has found nothing I might have done to potentially cause damage to the network, I was suspended for having the programs- nothing else. I plan to contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation for help with this clearly unfair oppression. The only (thought) crime I have committed is one arousing suspicion, not arriving from action. I will provide further information after I officially receive the suspension."

Submission + - answer to energy crisis - space solar power? (dailytech.com)

Submitted by silver3874 on Monday October 15, 2007 @03:39PM

silver3874 writes: the pentagon's answer to the energy crisis and dependence on foreign oil — a huge array of solar panels in space that will collect energy and beam it back to the us and their allies. this could happen within the decade depending on funding and development costs.

Submission + - Google using adsense to promote political agenda?

Submitted by on Friday October 12, 2007 @02:59PM

An anonymous reader writes: Google is accused of being selecting in accepting ads from political parties. They seem to be blocking ads from right-wing politicians, while accepting the ads from left-wing politicians. http://www.mainewebreport.com/2007/10/11/the-anti-moveon-ads-google-wont-let-you-see/

Submission + - Low-tech inventions that help change lives (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by

angelaelle

on Thursday October 11, 2007 @02:26PM

angelaelle writes: "The current issue of Popular Mechanics features their Breakthrough Awards program for inventors. Some of the winning inventions help improve the living conditions for people in third world countries using low-tech materials and assembly methods like this cookstove for people in Darfur, and in the case of this Windbelt developed by Shawn Frayne, could be used to provide cheap, clean energy alternatives here. On their web site they have videos of each winner. These videos are really fascinating and inspiring because they talk about the inventor's eureka moment, instead of just talking about their inventions. Here the link to all the winners: http://www.popularmechanics.com/breakthrough07"

Submission + - Internet Dismantling State Church in Finland (eroakirkosta.fi)

Submitted by Agnostic on Thursday October 11, 2007 @02:02PM

Agnostic writes: The Freethinkers of Tampere, who advocate separation of state and church in Finland, created a web site in 2003 to assist people in resigning from the church. The Web site became a big success, as 80% of all resignations in 2006 went through the web site. This article covers the decline of Finnish state church and its current status. Resigning from the church is as easy as filling one web form, and hence resignation rates have been increasing rapidly for several years. Finnish state church has many privileges set in law, including that every company has to pay taxes for the church. It can collect membership taxes through state officials, and avoids paying several taxes.

Submission + - DirecTV DVR Alleged to Violate GPL 1

Submitted by Linux_Crusader on Sunday October 07, 2007 @07:09PM

Linux_Crusader writes: A while back, the new HR20 DVR (Tivo clone) from DirecTV was found to be running uClinux 2.4.29. Unfortunately, hot on the heels of the Monsoon lawsuit, DirecTV has put in place a policy that they will not provide GPL sources under any circumstances. Instead they will just snail-mail you a copy of the GPL license when you request the code. What do we as a community need to do to better educate corporate Linux users?

Submission + - Uruguay Buys 100,000 OLPC XO, not Classmate PC (olpcnews.com)

Submitted by

wayan

on Thursday October 04, 2007 @01:45PM

wayan writes: "We now have the results from the first open competition for government purchases of laptops designed for 1:1 implementation in public schools, the Ceibal Uruguay RFP.

In a stunning upset for WinTel, LATU Uruguay, the government entity tested both Intel's Classmate PC and One Laptop Per Child's XO computer has rated the XO-1 the better option for the children of Uruguay's Florida province, 56.84 points to 53.06 points. Now the findings are not official yet, as all the bidders have five days to contest the process, but LATU should be purchasing 100,000 XO laptops for children, with an option to buy 50,000 more, at $199 per laptop.

Now imagine the impact of a whole generation of Uruguay children learning on Sugar/Linux FOSS!"

Submission + - Morgan Stanley abused CareerBuilder.com resumes (networkworld.com)

Submitted by

coondoggie

on Monday October 01, 2007 @11:24AM

coondoggie writes: "Massachusetts is charging and financial advisors from Morgan Stanley in Boston with improperly accessing CareerBuilder .com to download resumes and collect personal information of job seekers in an effort to solicit business on behalf of Morgan Stanley. The state also says Morgan Stanly advisors broke state and national Do Not Call registries by making "several hundred calls." Court papers state at least one advisor downloaded over 1,000 resumes contain personal and financial information. The use of such information for sales purposed is a breach of contract between Careerbuilder.com and Morgan Stanley, as the financial firm was to only use such information for recruitment purposes only, the state says. http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20082"

Submission + - Yes, Stickam does monitor your private video chats

Submitted by thefickler on Friday September 28, 2007 @06:19PM

thefickler writes: Stickam, a social networking site that places emphasis on chatting with friends by means of a webcam, states in its Terms of Service (TOS) that it retains the right to "monitor the content of any messaging that occurs on or through the instant message service;" however, it may come as a shock to learn that they regularly do monitor the webcam chats, including private, friend-to-friend chats. Neil Hotkiewicz learned the hard way.

Submission + - NY State AG Taking Heat for Secret Porn Plan (wired.com)

Submitted by

Billosaur

on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @11:08AM

Billosaur writes: "Wired is reporting that defense lawyers have become a bit wary of NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's plan to engage MediaDefender to help track down child-porn and its users on the internet. They are worried that the partnership could lead to favoritism in the AG's office later on if MediaDefender were to violate NY state law in the future. There is also concern that such a contract would lead to the incentive to "get results," leading to a host of legal problems. There is also the question of privacy, given the recent hack of MediaDefender's email system that led to the agreement coming to light. "Generally it is not looked upon favorably when a prosecutor engages a private company to collect evidence in a case or to ... partner with in a criminal case," says San Francisco public defender Jeff Adachi."

Submission + - GPL suit against Monsoon MM not settled after all

Submitted by

lisah

on Tuesday September 25, 2007 @03:25PM

lisah writes: "Though it was reported yesterday that Monsoon Multimedia and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) had reached an agreement to settle their GPL differences out of court, SFLC's legal director Daniel Ravicher confirmed to Linux.com that they are only at the discussion phase of being able to work things out. Though the SFLC says letters to Monsoon requesting that they stop unlawfully distributing BusyBox code went unanswered, Monsoon chairman and COO Graham Radstone says the company, 'always intended to comply with all open source software license requirements.'"

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