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Networking

Submission + - Justice dept. says no to net neutrality

Submitted by Maximum Prophet
Maximum Prophet writes: "The Justice Department on Thursday said Internet service providers should be allowed to charge a fee for priority Web traffic..."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20625194/

Is anyone surprised? The anti-net neutrality people sound good, but the powers to be aren't going to allow just anyone to dig up the streets to lay new cable for last mile access, so there is never going to be real compitition for internet access. Without real competition, there's no free market, so "The Market" can't decide.

The FCC needs to realize that if consumers had a choice among many providers, almost no one would choose a provider that restricted their access. (unless that provider had a cost near zero, like broadcast TV)
Sony

Submission + - More rootkit shenanigans from Sony

Submitted by BobB
BobB writes: A line of USB drives sold by Sony Electronics installs files in a hidden folder that can be accessed and used by hackers, a Finnish security company charged Monday, raising the specter of a replay of the fiasco that hit Sony's music arm two years ago when researchers discovered that its copy protection software used rootkit-like technologies. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/082707-deja- vu-sony-uses-rootkits.html
Data Storage

Submission + - Seagate firmware performance differs

Submitted by
Derkjan de Haan
Derkjan de Haan writes: "The Seagate 7200.10 disk was the first generally available desktop drive featuring perpendicular recording. This feature stores the information vertically instead of horizontally on the platters, thereby increasing the data density. This made higher capacity disks cheaper to produce and offer excellent performance. Their sequential throughput actually superseded that of the performance king; the Western Digital Raptor which runs at 10.000rpm instead of the usual 7.200rpm. All was good, until reports on the internet claimed that some 7200.10 disks had much lower performance than other 7200.10 disks. They soon took blame on the firmware of the disks, named AAK. Disks with other firmware, AAE or AAC, performed as expected. The benchmarks performed showed very mixed results. The claims found on the internet, however, have been confirmed. The AAK disk does have a much lower throughput rate than the AAE disk. While firmware can tune various aspects of performance it is highly unusual for it to affect sequential throughput. The STR is pretty much a 'fact' of the disk, and should not be affected by different firmware. URL: http://www.fluffles.net/articles/seagate-AAK-firmw are"
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Linux in every seat on the Airbus 380 (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
jpatokal
jpatokal writes: "Singapore Airlines will be rolling out the A380 "superjumbo" on October 26th, and a surprise awaits in the seat of every passenger: their personal Linux PC, running Red Hat. In addition to running the in-flight entertainment, passengers can also use a full copy of StarOffice, and there's a USB slot for importing/exporting documents or plugging in your own keyboard/mouse. Screen size is 10.6" (1280x768) in economy, 15.4" in business and a whopping 23" in first class. The system is already available on their current B777-300ER planes and will also be outfitted on the upcoming B787 Dreamliners."
Windows

Submission + - MS responds to Vista's network and audio problems. (zdnet.com)

Submitted by quirdan
quirdan writes: With the publishing of the discovery of the connection between Vista's poor networking performance and audio activities last week, word quickly spread around the Internet. No doubt this grabbed Microsoft's attention, and they have decided to respond to the issue. Microsoft state they are working on a technical documentation, as well as applying a slight sugar coating to the symptoms. Apparently they believe almost a 90% drop in networking performance is "slight," only affects reception of data, and that this performance trade-off is necessary to simply play an MP3 or a Windows 'ding' sound. Come on — this is 2007, not 1997.
Security

Submission + - Skype reads /etc/passwd 1

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: According to this post in the Skype Linux Forums Skype tries to read out the /etc/passwd as well as some other files and directories. At this time, there is no official statement from Skype concerning this matter.
Security

Submission + - Storm botnet spams Youtube exploit (blogspot.com)

Submitted by cottagetrees
cottagetrees writes: Security researcher Roger Thompson at Exploit Prevention Labs posted about a big Storm botnet spam that tells the recipient their face is all over 'net on a YouTube video. The hyperlink to the video looks innocent enough, though the html under the link takes the user to an exploitive IP address that attempts a driveby download of the Q4Rollup exploit, a package of about a dozen encrypted exploits. If the user is unpatched against anything, they're hit. Here's the text of the spam I personally received this morning: "Subject: Who is that your with? lol Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 09:40:32 -0400 From: To: OMG, what are you doing man. This video of you is all over the net. here is the link I got http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAqQ2G671GV (in the html email, the actual hyperlink is to a different address, which I confirmed was exploitive by pasting it into LinkScanner Online at http://linkscanner.explabs.com/linkscanner/default .asp I test all my suspicious hyperlinks here.)
Programming

Submission + - US Patent office glitch Fart=Part (digitalnetworking.biz)

Submitted by
WhiteHorse-The Origi
WhiteHorse-The Origi writes: "The US Patent and Trademark Office has a glitch in their Optical Character Recognition(OCR) software which confuses "P" with "F". Consequently, all patents which contain the word "Part" can be found by searching for the word "Fart". By submission of this article, the author in no way admits searching the patent office for the word Fart."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Desktop Faceoff: Fedora vs. Vista (earthweb.com)

Submitted by
jammag
jammag writes: "In this article, an expert user with both OSes on his desktop does a feature by feature comparison. It's a balanced piece — not the usual flame. He concludes: "Fedora and its default GNOME desktop may still have a few lessons to learn from Vista, particularly in the selection of administration tools. Yet in terms of almost everything that's important to users, Fedora and GNOME have overtaken Vista and are rapidly pulling away from it.""
Operating Systems

Submission + - SCO loses - finally 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The one summary judgement that puts a stick into SCO's spokes has just come down. SCO doesn't own the Unix copyrights. With that one decision, a whole bunch of other decisions will fall like dominoes. As PJ says, "That's Aaaaall, Folks!".

Hot off the presses: Judge Dale Kimball has issued a 102-page ruling [PDF] on the numerous summary judgment motions in SCO v. Novell. Here is what matters most: [T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare Copyrights. That's Aaaaall, Folks! If anyone can please put this into text for us, that'd be simply great.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200708101 65237718#comments
Operating Systems

Submission + - How Linux Became Usable

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: KernelTrap offers an informative look back in time at the November 1991 release of the 0.10 Linux kernel, continuing their historical series of articles about the early beginnings of Linux. Quite entertaining is a quote from Linus Torvalds talking about when he accidently deleted the Minix partition that he was developing Linux from, causing him to make Linux usable for more than just reading and posting to newsgroups. The article also discusses the creation of the linux-activists mailing list, offering browsable archives of that first Linux discussion forum, full of interesting gems. And finally it describes the first Linux distribution, MCC Interim, which was created and used by the University of Manchester to teach C programming and UNIX.
Enlightenment

Submission + - Actual Zombies in North-Eastern Cambodia. (myspace.com) 3

Submitted by
Talon705
Talon705 writes: "A new strain of Malaria carried by mosquitoes in North-Eastern Cambodia has a 100% mortality rate. It kills within 2 days and then restarts the heart for about two hours, during which the infected act rather violently from a combination of brain damage and chemicals released in the brain during reanimation.

My thoughts: Holy freakin' piss! At least no one has said anything about the disease being transmitted through the infected ... just from those freakin' mosquitoes....

http://65.127.124.62/south_asia/4483241.stm.htm"
Windows

Submission + - Acer CEO Cites Vista as a 'Disappointment' (physorg.com) 1

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Quite surprisingly the head of Acer, Gianfranco Lanci, has spoken out against Vista saying that the entire PC industry is 'disappointed' with it. He claims not only stability issues but also talks frankly about his number one concern: sales. Is it Microsoft's responsibility to make sure that its operating systems sell computers? I don't think so but Lanci disagrees, while talking about Vista doing nothing for sales: "The entire industry is disappointed by Windows Vista. And that's not going to change in the second half of this year. I really don't think that someone has bought a new PC specifically for Vista." Well, it's clear to me now why PC makers might be shying away from Linux, I've never had to buy a new computer when I upgraded to a new kernel — in fact, my first computer I built in 1999 is still running Linux flawlessly with nothing changed but the hard drive."
The Courts

Submission + - Cellular networks should be open, says major news (yahoo.com)

Submitted by
athloi
athloi writes: "In the USA, however, cellphone service providers can and do thwart innovative technologies and limit competition. For example, they routinely bar handset makers from including Wi-Fi capabilities, which can save consumers a bundle by allowing them to use a free network when they are in "hot spots." With more new technologies on the way, the current system could stifle innovation. http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070712/cm_usato day/ourviewonspectrumforsaledisconnectphoneprovide r"

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