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Submission + - iPhone's Ironic Bill

Submitted by Dr. Eggman
Dr. Eggman writes: Bills have begun rolling in from AT&T for those lucky iPhone users. Ars Technica reports on the ironically antithetic nature of these bills. For a device prized for its intuitive, elegant, and minimalist style, its bill leaves one with quite the opposite impression. The bills from AT&T, can reach around 52 pages long with both sides utilized, filled with every minutiae of vague details possible. "I had some data use that, under the To/From heading, AT&T has helpfully listed as "Data Transfer." The Type of file? "Data." My total charge? $0.00. " Imagining a minor phone book of logs like this certainly makes it hard to picture the pretty green apple it's coming from, maybe AT&T should take a page from Apple?
PC Games (Games)

Submission + - Carmack Explains DOSBox Usage on Steam (doomworld.com)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: With the recent release of Id Software games over Steam, the use DOSBox to run the older titles has stirred up plenty of questions. Over at Doomworld, Andrew "Linguica" Stein went ahead and asked John Carmack exactly why they chose to use DOSBox instead of newer versions of some of the games, specifically the ones running on the original Doom engine. His reply was fairly straightfoward:

It all comes down to resources — re-qualifying a release of anything takes a lot of time, money, and support, while just shipping the exact same executables was fairly straightforward.
Graphics

Submission + - New Milestone Demoscene Releases. (pouet.net) 4

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: With over 3000 visitors one of the biggest computer festivals, the Assembly 2007, just closed doors. The event saw the release of some of the best demoscene productions of this year. Among them the first good demos for the XBOX 360, but also for platforms as obscure as the Atari VCS2600 from 1976. The main demo competition was won by Lifeforce, one of the most acclaimed demoscene demos ever. Other releases can be found here.
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - iD and Valve violating GPL

Submitted by frooge
frooge writes: With the recent release of iD's catalog on Steam, it appears DOSBox is being used to run the old DOS games for greater compatibility. According to a post on the Halflife2.net forums, however, this distribution does not contain a copy of the GPL license that DOSBox is distributed under, which violates the license. According to the DOSBox developers, they were not notified that it was being used for this release.
Education

Submission + - LinuxWorld: Open Source, Closed Doors 2

Submitted by dualscan337
dualscan337 writes: As a long time linux user and enthusiast I thought it was finally time to take the plunge and attend the LinuxWorld Conference next week out in San Francisco. I registered online to get the free Exhibit Hall Pass but this morning I received this email:

"Thank you for your interest LinuxWorld Conference & Expo San
Francisco, August 6-9, 2007.

Unfortunately, as a business-to-business event targeted
exclusively toward enterprise IT professionals, official show
policy prohibits students, and anyone under the age of 18, from
attending this event. Therefore, we must inform you that your
registration to attend LinuxWorld Conference & Expo is not valid
and you will not be permitted on the showfloor."

I'm a graduate student in the physical sciences and I realize that this is a business oriented event.. but what is to gain by maintaining this sort of closed door policy toward students? Let's not forget that a lot of code is contributed by the people they're not allowing inside the door. I have always felt that the power of open source was in the fact that anyone could participate/contribute. I feel that a conference whose slogan is "Open Source Rules — Find out why" and doesn't let me in because I'm a student misrepresents what Linux and Open Source is all about. What does slashdot think? Should I have planned on going to DefCon instead?
Security

Submission + - BlackICE to be Discontinued, Other Vendors Move in (beskerming.com)

Submitted by
SkiifGeek
SkiifGeek writes: "In a move that might be somewhat surprising to many, IBM ISS will soon stop selling BlackICE PC and Server Protection, with all support for the products to cease by 28 September, 2008. Other vendors are already making a move to capture the userbase, with SunBelt Software establishing SaveBlackICE.com, where BlackICE users can access a free copy of what used to be the Kerio firewall."
The Courts

Submission + - Germans reject file-sharing paranoia (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
athloi
athloi writes: "German prosecutors have begun denying requests to force ISPs to identify the subscribers behind IP addresses, saying that the alleged file-sharing was a "petty offense." According to German-language Heise Online, the court said that the labels did not explain how a "criminally relevant damage" could have arisen from the alleged file-sharing. Unlike the US legal system, German law has no provision allowing for civil proceedings to obtain ISP subscriber info.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070802-file -sharing-is-a-petty-offense-say-german-prosecutors .html"
Software

Submission + - Ghostscript unified, long live GPL v2 (kdedevelopers.org)

Submitted by bmcage
bmcage writes: Ghostscript is back, but does it still have a future for printing or on the Desktop with pdf going strong? Whatever happens, everybody should rejoice, as Ghostscript has a new version, a new license, and most importantly, the EPS Ghostscript fork has come to an end.

Welcome back in the fold, GPL Ghostscript! We'll make some room on the hard disk for you.
Software

Submission + - BitTorrent 6.0 beta closed source, Windows only

Submitted by makomk
makomk writes: The BitTorrent (Mainline) 6.0 beta has been released, and it's a rebranded version of uTorrent. Unfortunately, it's also closed source and Windows-only. (Apparently, BitTorrent Inc always planned that the next version of Mainline would be closed-source, even before they decided to base it on uTorrent.) It also comes with a mysterious content delivery system called BitTorrent DNA, which appears to consist of a single invisible background task, dna.exe.

Does the original, open source BitTorrent client have a future, or is it time for its users to switch to one of the many other BitTorrent clients?
Windows

Submission + - Windows XP Service Pack 3

Submitted by
epsi
epsi writes: "Windows XP SP 3 probably in 2008 — MS had a Roadmap in his recent Partner-Mag — and there was mentioned that a Service Pack 3 for Windows XP will be available in 2008..propably not the end of XP now? ;)"
Privacy

Submission + - Ruling by Secret US Court Allegedly Reduces Spying

Submitted by conspirator57
conspirator57 writes: TFA http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-spying2aug02,0,5813563.story?coll=la-home-cente r states that the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (a court that no citizen can establish standing to appear before) has ruled against Executive requests for so-called "basket warrants" as violating the 4th amendment to the Constitution, namely that such warrants do not meet the clearly expressed criteria in the second half of the amendment. To accomplish this they must have looked startlingly like British general warrants which were the original motivation for the 4th amendment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_(law) for more.

TFA is very sympathetic to the Executive branch, going on to depict ways in which we're all less safe because of this ruling. Personally, I feel safer with more rulings like this one. Just wish the process were a bit more transparent.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The Internet

Submission + - Suprnova.org Is About To Return

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The legendary BitTorrent site Suprnova.org will be back in action soon. Sloncek, the former owner of suprnova.org decided to donate the domain to The Pirate Bay lads, who will relaunch the site in a few days, staying true to its original design. The return of a Legend.
Quickies

Submission + - RIAA backtracks after embarrassing P2P defendant (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "ARSTechnica reports, " RIAA included the customary exhibits with screenshots of what it alleges are the defendant's Kazaa library. Along with the 367 sound recordings that Sgt. Nicholas Paternoster is accused of illegally sharing, the exhibit also contained over 4,200 other files?including pornographic images?that had nothing to do with the labels' case. Recognizing its latest gaffe, the RIAA filed a motion asking that the original exhibit be removed from the public record and replaced with a modified exhibit without the superfluous file names. ""
Spam

Submission + - Are You Still Flooded by pdf Spam? (wsj.com) 1

Submitted by
JamieErin
JamieErin writes: "I just read the Wall Street Journal article: The Latest Inbox Scourge: Spam Disguised as PDFs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118487357266572001 -Qa7NKLP13DBJr1WCOK_HNrW_MAc_20080730.html?mod=crn ews

I can't believe that pdf spam has been taking over my inbox for over a month now without being filtered out yet!

Barracuda Networks claims their firewall nailed pdf spam on June 29:
Barracuda Spam Firewall Thwarts PDF Spam
http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/news_and_event s/index.php?nid=178

Is this for real? Is anyone NOT getting pdf spam anymore? If so, what anti-spam vendor do you use?"
Mozilla

Submission + - Firefox 2.0.0.6 Released, 2 Security Issues Fixed (mozilla.com)

Submitted by
Catcher80
Catcher80 writes: "In case some of you Mozilla Firefox users are not aware, an updated version was released today (July 30, 2007) dubbed version 2.0.0.6. The two known vulnerabilities addressed are (from the page): Privilege escalation through chrome-loaded about:blank windows and Unescaped URIs passed to external programs. No word if Mozilla has addressed the password management vulnerability previously mentioned here on Slashdot. If you haven't gotten a pop-up box telling you to restart Firefox yet, you might want to hit "Help > Check For Updates..." and live in the now!"

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