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Security

Submission + - US Air Traffic Control Vulnerable To Cyberattack (computerworld.com)

CWmike writes: "U.S. air traffic control systems are at high risk of attack due to their links to insecure Web applications run by aviation authorities around the country, according to a U.S. Department of Transportation audit. Penetration testers found 763 high-risk vulnerabilities in 70 Web apps used for functions such as distributing communications frequencies for pilots and controllers to the public, the report (PDF) said. 'In our opinion, unless effective action is taken quickly, it is likely to be a matter of when, not if, ATC systems encounter attacks that do serious harm to ATC operations,' the report concluded."
The Internet

Submission + - US Senator calls for new net neutrality rules (goodgearguide.com.au)

angry tapir writes: "The U.S. Federal Communications Commission needs to pass strong new net-neutrality rules to prevent small technology entrepreneurs from being crowded out of the market by large broadband providers, US Senator Ron Wyden has argued: "The continued growth of the 'Net right now is being hampered by the lack of clear, enforceable standards on net neutrality. I don't think the country can afford that in these kinds of difficult economic times.""
Government

Submission + - IP Enforcement Treaty Still Being Kept Secret

Hugh Pickens writes: "More than a thousand pages of material about Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), are still being withheld, despite the Obama administration's promises to run a more open government. The EFF and Public Knowledge filed suit in September of 2008, demanding that background documents on ACTA be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). "We are very disappointed with the USTR's decision to continue to withhold these documents The president promised an open and transparent administration," said EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel. Publicly available information about the treaty shows it could establish far-reaching customs regulations over Internet traffic in the guise of anti-counterfeiting measures. Additionally, multi-national IP industry companies have publicly requested that ISPs be required to engage in filtering of their customers' Internet communications for potentially copyright-infringing material, force mandatory disclosure of personal information about alleged copyright infringers, and adopt "Three Strikes" policies requiring ISPs to automatically terminate customers' Internet access upon a repeat allegation of copyright infringement. "What we've seen tends to confirm that the substance of ACTA remains a grave concern," said Public Knowledge Staff Attorney Sherwin Siy. "The agreement increasingly looks like an attempt by Hollywood and the content industries to perform an end-run around national legislatures and public international forums to advance an aggressive, radical change in the way that copyright and trademark laws are enforced.""

Comment Re:I laugh ... (Score 1) 163

Of course it will be broken in some ways, but this does sound like it would be an improvement over the current set of problematic ID systems. I mean if an ID with protection in depth that was actually cryptographically secure could be created... Well lets just say I would feel a lot better using it in a more wide spread area (think credit cards / money transfers, or more creative things).

Comment Re:What is actually happening? (Score 1) 112

Hey thanks for that, it was pretty clear, but I still am wondering if it was about the specific set of scans that Google made or if it grants Google exclusive rights to the text regardless of the scans which clearly be very bad.

That clarification is really important because clearly blocking all other parties from the book table would be a clear abuse of monopoly position by Google.

Comment What is actually happening? (Score 2, Insightful) 112

Can anyone actually correctly summarize what is going on with this Google book deal, I find it hard to believe that Google is trying to gain exclusive rights over all these unclaimed (copyright wise) books completely and forever for all copies of this book everywhere.

Isn't it really that they just want rights to put up the books that they scanned (and some people that had agreements with them to help scan)? Is there something that would stop people from rescanning those books and posting them up some place else?

Links to clear sources would be best... Where's my Google Security Blanket(TM)!

Comment MOD UP (Score 1) 328

Mod this guy up big time!

I've worked on SCADA power systems before as well and everything he says here is very accurate. The problem with the system starts with the desk jockey types start to want to view the system from their office desk... It all goes down hill from there.

I'll also point out that I'm sure that if someone wanted to get into the system that was off network they would just put USB thumb drives out in the parking lot with malware on them, then wait for the malware to call home or worm its way around the network to a machine that is connecting to the internet and tunnel in that way.

Comment Re:Wise choice (Score 4, Interesting) 204

Maybe so, but do if you are hoping to get young people - people who wouldn't otherwise notice you - to notice you, then maybe you would post it to some place they go right? I'm wondering why they can't just post them to multiple places - now that seems a more reasonable question to me.

Comment Re:Not a partisan issue (Score 1) 857

I suppose I should have expected this when I posted the above, ha. The theory of libertarianism should be the things you said, but the party put him as their head representative, so he truly does a grave disservice to their party by his words. All I can say is I was unimpressed by Barr's very un-libertarian like views.

In particular (and to try and return to topic), I wonder what Barr would have said about such policies considering he said he was "unsure" about whole war on terror and DHS stuff (I *believe* he said something to that effect - no time to properly verify my memory). I'm not sure he understands that any law "on the books" but not universally enforceable is essentially a tool for abuse.

Comment Re:Not a partisan issue (Score 1) 857

The US Libertarian party is marginalized here because they are very socially conservative. Making them rather socially un-liberal. If there is a party that is for social freedom and other reforms, I don't know it. So much for hippies?

I listened to the debate between Bob Barr and Ralph Nader that happened here in DC and IMO Barr did not come off well.

Comment Re:I don't get it (Score 1) 32

They seem to have a whole section of their site made for crowd sourcing out ideas for their game (rather clever of them heh).

I too though couldn't find any screen shots or other game play videos. Their lego creation game was also rather problematic IMO, so I seriously wonder if they will have come up with new ways to actually do the building... And previous stuff has had a lot of issues with only releasing a small set of the blocks which made buildings very annoying. :(

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