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Communications

Submission + - FBI's Unknown Eavesdropping Network (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Building off the design mandates of CALEA, the FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to nearly a thousand pages of restricted documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act, Wired News reports. The surveillance system, called DCSNet, for Digital Collection System Network, connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is far more intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure than observers suspected.
Businesses

Submission + - U.S. Government plans three-week test pandemic (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "The U.S. Government is co-sponsoring a three-week exercise that will simulate the impact of a flu pandemic on financial services firms, including their ability to support telecommuters, according to Patrick Thibodeau at Computerworld. The exercise, estimated to be the largest in history, will involve more than 1,800 organizations. The test will cover telecommunications issues, but is not supposed to cause any service disruptions with ATMs or online banking sites."
Space

Submission + - Computers Find False Aliens? (astrobio.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Astrobiology Magazine has interviewed Frank Drake, the creator of the Drake Equation which estimates the number of intelligent civilizations in the galaxy. He notes that potential alien signals detected by automated SETI programs have a problem — with no one there to conduct immediate follow-up studies, the source of one-time signals can't be identified: "The long Harvard search of Horowitz and Sagan observed more than thirty signals that had the earmark of an extraterrestrial signal. The SETI@Home program has observed more than a hundred such signals. Both of these programs are automated, though, so no one was there at the time to do immediate follow-up observations. Researchers later tried to detect these signals, but, as with the Wow signal, they've been unsuccessful. So the origin of these signals is an open question. Project Phoenix of the SETI Institute also has found many good candidates, but that program could immediately determine the origin of the signal and all of them turned out to be of human origin. It may be that all the potential signals detected so far were generated by humans."
Displays

Submission + - 360 Degree Light Field Display

Submitted by
Gary
Gary writes: "Designed by USC's Institute for Creative Technologies the Interactive 360 Degree Light Field Display won the Best Emerging Technology Award at SIGGRAPH 2007. The system is capable of producing 3D images which can be viewed by multiple users. The display uses a standard programmable graphics card to render over 5,000 images per second of interactive 3D graphics, projecting 360-degree views with 1.25 degree separation up to 20 updates per second. As the video shows it is capable of Star Wars styled Holographic Style Projections."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - $4.5 billion "bin Laden trade" 1

Submitted by djp928
djp928 writes: Looks like somebody is betting the stock market will crash by 30% or more by the third week in September. tinfoil hat sites are giving the story the most play, but at least a few non-kook sites have also analyzed this disturbing trade. It also happened on the European market as well.
Privacy

Submission + - Google unveils prototype of personal health record (memag.com)

Submitted by Dances With Volts
Dances With Volts writes: Medical Economics Magazine, a publication for physicians, is currently running this story: "Imagine a computerized healthcare system in which insurers, pharmacies, hospitals, retail clinics, and doctors upload clinical information as it's generated to a patient's personal health record, or PHR. Then imagine that Google, king of search engines, is somehow at the center of this data network." — Am I being paranoid, or does this give anyone else the creeps.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Apple founded on Phone Phreakers, goes after iPhon (9to5mac.com)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Apple's founders got their start in 1975 by building and selling "Blue Boxes" that hacked AT&T's network. Now they've flipped the script — cutting down others that are trying to Open the iPhone for use on other networks. Going to be hard for Apple to take the moral high ground on this one — especially when the evidence is on Woz's website!"
United States

Submission + - Iraqi whistleblower imprisoned and tortured (footballfans.tv)

Submitted by wwmedia
wwmedia writes: One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.

Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling....
Quickies

Submission + - Sleepy?Spend less time on the internet/watching TV (dailymail.co.uk)

Submitted by
Ant
Ant writes: "The Daily Mail reports people, who spend time on the internet or watching television before they go to bed, are more likely to feel like they don't get enough sleep. Even though they sleep almost as long as people who spend fewer pre-bedtime hours in front of a computer or television screen, they will stil feel tired according to a new survey... Seen on Digg."
Privacy

Submission + - England's Database Of Children COmes Under Fire (timesonline.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "A comprehensive database of every single child in England is slated to go live next year amid growing doubts as to the system's security and safety. Possible misuse by unauthorized users is only one concern. Ian Brown, a computer security research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, summed it up nicely: "When you have got more than 300,000 people accessing this database, it's just very difficult to stop the sale of information." With an estimated 330,000 "vetted users" and over 11 million children listed, can there be any doubt that this database will be a virtual magnet for pedophiles, spammers, and scammers?"
Education

Submission + - Student suspended for website sues

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: A University of Delaware student suspended for a humor website that a fellow student found 'disturbing' has filed a lawsuit alleging that the University violated his First Amendment rights. A separate site (created for this purpose) has more details. From the complaint, "UD makes available its Internet server for students to create web sites with no restrictions on content... As such, UD may not, consistent with the First Amendment, punish any student based on the content of his or her website, even though the content may have an adverse emotional impact on some readers."

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