Arclight17 - Slashdot User

Submission + - Is Piracy Really Killing the Music Industry?

Submitted by on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @03:32AM

An anonymous reader writes: While various music industry trade groups claim that piracy is killing their industry and that higher CD prices, DRM, and file sharing litigation are its only recourse to survive, RoughlyDrafted presents a look at four groups critical of the labels' policies, and compares sales figures published by the RIAA itself. The article provides an interesting look at the variety of opinion on the subject, and how RIAA members can best adapt to current market realities. Is Piracy Really Killing the Music Industry?

Submission + - National Shutdown Day

Submitted by bpedman on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @02:21AM

bpedman writes: I found this site and idea to be interesting. www.shutdownday.org invites all people that use a computer to shutdown for a complete 24 hours and not use a computer. Over thirty-thousand people have visited the site and committed to either shutdown for the day, March 24th, or not. I am as yet undecided, I do not know how long it has been since I have not powered on my computer or anothers for a full 24 hours. (Think of the electricity alone that would be saved in that one day if all computers were shutdown!)

Submission + - Microsoft gets ownd by its own Windows OneCare

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @01:25AM

Stony Stevenson writes: Microsoft has launched a marketing campaign that lets any student from an Australian university buy the Ultimate edition of Office 2007 (usually costs $1150) for only $75. A discount of about 93%. But when users go to the site, Microsoft Live OneCare pops up saying the site is a potential phishing scam.

From the article: When entering the site, some users have reported receiving a warning from Windows Live OneCare advising that the www.itsnotcheating.com.au site is a suspicious website.

The warning reads: "Phishing filter has determined this might be a phishing website. We recommend that you do not give any of your information to such websites. Phishing websites impersonate trustworthy websites for the purpose of obtaining your personal or financial information."

A Microsoft spokesperson said the company was unaware of the warning but pledged to amend it as soon as possible.

Submission + - Beware how much your WiFi is sharing about you!

Submitted by

QuantumCrypto

on Tuesday March 06, 2007 @12:47AM

QuantumCrypto writes: "Errata has developed a new network sniffer that looks for traffic using 25 protocols, including those for the popular instant message clients as well as DHCP, SNMP, DNS and HTTP. This means the sniffer will capture requests for network addresses, network management tools, Web sites queries, Web traffic and more. "You don't realize how much you're making public, so I wrote a tool that tells you," said Robert Graham, Errata's chief executive. The tool will soon be released publicly on the Black Hat Web site. Anyone with a wireless card will be able to run it, Graham said. Errata also plans to release the source code on its Web site."

Submission + - World wide shutdown is early stages of planning...

Submitted by zoftie on Monday March 05, 2007 @08:34AM

zoftie writes: Many people are planning to shut their computers off for entire day on March 24th. Shutdown Day website already went over 25000 people who are committed to spending their day free of their electronic pacifier, feeding tube however you want to describe your relationship to your computer(s). Being in IT industry for a while this leads on to one question, what is the consequence of such act, and what does it ask of us beyond turning off the computer.

Submission + - Why the RIAA is Bad - In a Nutshell

Submitted by

JeremyDuffy

on Monday March 05, 2007 @08:02AM

JeremyDuffy writes: "This is probably the best summary of who the RIAA is and what they stand for that I've ever heard:

The RIAA is like the Prohibitionists of old. In their view, the law cannot allow for something completely reasonable such as legal circumvention because it could be abused. Millions of people are thereby punished. Yet this is not how a civil society typically functions. Life is full of potentially dangerous products, services, and ideas. It's up to individuals to take responsibility for their actions, because we all know that catering to the lowest common denominator does not give birth to a free society, let alone an intelligent one. Yet the RIAA will stop at nothing to make sure that you and I never have the chance to make such decisions for ourselves.
By "legal circumvention", he refers to the the practice of circumventing Data Rights Management (DRM) for legal purposes such as making personal backup copies, educational uses, and other Fair Use practices. The RIAA is against it because they know that all it takes is one user with a DRM-free copy to post a song online for it to be shared everywhere in the world."

Feed Diebold Weighs Voting Unit Future (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Monday March 05, 2007 @07:32AM

Execs of the 150-year-old company consider dumping its e-voting subsidiary for tarnishing a reputation built on safes and ATM machines. By the Associated Press.

Feed Top Secret: We're Wiretapping You (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Monday March 05, 2007 @07:32AM

The feds accidentally give a D.C. attorney a classified document showing that the NSA intercepted his phone calls without a warrant. When they ask for it back, they get a $2 million lawsuit along with it. By Ryan Singel.

Submission + - AI Evolution

Submitted by

balaciu

on Monday March 05, 2007 @07:28AM

balaciu writes: "What we call "Artificial Intelligence" is the next step in evolution after us but because we can not evolve as fast as machines some problems could appear. In the future between us and machines it will be no difference we are both made by matter we are both complex creatures and the machines will be even more complex than us. An inteligent beeing have aspirations and I think that a very complex being is capable of conscience. If the machines will become much more complex and inteligent than us, as I suspect, at this point to keep machines under control it will be like we are closed in cages by monkeys. Maybe in the future...read more"

Submission + - Not spam: Office 2007 for AU$75, saves AU$1075!

Submitted by cute-boy on Monday March 05, 2007 @07:18AM

cute-boy writes: Aussie students get deal from Microsoft: The Sydney Morning Herald report Aussie students can pick up a copy of Office 2007 sooooo cheap..... It's good to know that altruistic Microsoft cares so much about education here in Australia, but, call me a cynic, I have to wonder if the fact there are free alternatives that will do the job, has forced this upon them. -R

Submission + - Pythomnic, building Python network services, again

Submitted by

tgt

on Monday March 05, 2007 @05:04AM

tgt writes: "At a risk of being annoying, I'd like to bring up the Pythomnic project again — a platform (that was the right word — a platform) for building reliable network services in Python.

The biggest point about this project is that it allows doing a non-stop live development of middleware systems built around a set of network services. Source code and/or configuration can be changed on the fly without interrupting the service. Modules can be migrated invisibly from one server to another or duplicated for redundancy or scaling. And it's in Python.

It came a long way from being a concept/prototype to a production system (although the development continues, as always). The web site now offers a lot of documentation and tutorial, the supported interfaces include JMS, SOAP, XMLRPC, SMPP and it connects to SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL and Oracle among many other interesting features.

Please give it a look:
http://www.pythomnic.org/"

Submission + - ICT Patch for Withdrawal Symptoms on Shutdown Day

Submitted by

Moonaire

on Monday March 05, 2007 @12:30AM

Moonaire writes: "Shutdown Day (March 24) is the day to see if one can survive for 24 hours without the computer/internet. This task is near impossible for uber geeks who'll get withdrawal symptoms and convulsions within the first hour. So, Moonaire has written down the 7 most important things any geek needs to prepare, in order to survive Shutdown Day. Item #1 is the ICT Patch. Just like how the nicotine patch helps to keep smokers off smoking, the ICT Patch is a small sticker of your favourite website that you stick on yourself, so you don't get withdrawal symptoms. Read at http://www.thecreativityclub.com/events/7-things-t o-prepare-for-shutdown-day/"

Submission + - Open Call From the Patent Office

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05, 2007 @12:03AM

An anonymous reader writes: The patent office is looking to employ a Wiki-like process for reviewing patents. Here is the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/03/04/AR2007030401263.html?nav=rss_email/c omponents?nav=slate

Submission + - Copyright law used to shut down anti-coal site

Submitted by driptray on Sunday March 04, 2007 @11:20PM

driptray writes: The Sydney Morning Herald reports that an Australian mining industry group has used copyright laws to close a website that parodied a coal industry ad campaign. A group known as Rising Tide created the website using the slogan "Rising sea levels: brought to you by mining" in response to the mining industry's slogan of "Life: brought to you by mining". The mining industry claimed that the "content and layout" of the parody site infringed copyright, but when Rising Tide removed the copyrighted photos and changed the layout, the mining industry still lodged a complaint. Is this a misuse of copyright law in order to stifle dissent?

Feed Bush Courts Brazil as Ethanol Pal (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed on Sunday March 04, 2007 @11:12PM

Brazil's sugar cane provides the ethanol that fuels eight out of every 10 new Brazilian cars. Bush wants an alliance with the planet's undisputed renewable energy leader. By the Associated Press.

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