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GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - skype protocol reverse engineered (wordpress.com)

Submitted by
shifting_control
shifting_control writes: "While many Linux users are upset that Microsoft’s buying out Skype and that the Free Software Foundation’s GNU Free Call hasn’t matured much in being a reliable replacement to Skype (not all of the FSF projects move along), there is some interesting news this morning: an independent researcher has reverse-engineered the Skype protocol."
News

Submission + - Copyright Rebellion - Profs Fight Content Lock-Up

Submitted by
jyosim
jyosim writes: "The digital age was supposed to put information at our fingertips. Books and data and images on an Internet browser would be just a click away.Instead, scholars are being denied access to millions of books. Images are not being distributed. Two major universities face lawsuits by book and video publishers for using digital copies in courses. And the U.S. Congress has placed behind the wall of copyright many items that used to be in the public domain, all because of aggressive new tactics by publishers. The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a special report on how fed-up professors are pushing back, in court and on campus, to keep teaching and research from being starved of material."

Comment Makes sense (Score 2) 153

by orkysoft (#36283454) Attached to: Chinese Military Admits Existence of Cyberwarfare Unit

An army needs supplies;
Organizing supplies (logistics) gets very complicated, and needs IT infrastructure;
Disabling an opposing army's supply lines is a proved war strategy;
Enemies could damage the IT infrastructure, thereby endangering the supply lines;
In a conflict, enemies will try to damage the army's IT infrastructure;
An army needs people who can protect its IT infrastructure and damage the enemy's.
Nintendo

The FSF's Campaign Against the Nintendo 3DS 187

Posted by Soulskill from the terms-of-disservice dept.
Max Hyre writes "The Nintendo 3DS's terms of so-called service, and the even more grotesquely-misnamed privacy policy, make it clear that you are in the service of Nintendo. Specifically, anything you do, write, photograph, or otherwise generate with the 3DS is Nintendo's possession, for them to use however, whenever, and for as long as they want. On the other hand, if you do something they don't like, they're prepared to turn your device into a doorstop — and you gave them permission when you started using it. And if you have a child's best interests at heart, don't give it to anyone too young to know to never use her real name, type in an address or phone number, or take any personally-identifiable photos. They might, at best, end up in a Nintendo ad."

Submission + - City Council Candidate Censors Debate with DMCA (gvtexas.com) 4

Submitted by claytongulick
claytongulick writes: I've become involved in a local city council election in Grapevine, Texas. Normally, these elections are pretty friendly affairs, but this one has turned nasty: one of the city council candidates has been using the DMCA to censor websites that are critical of her.

    The website "comecleankathleen.com" contained information and questions critical of the candidate Kathleen Thompson. The site contained public records information about the funding sources of Kathleen's campaign and questions about her background and organizational affiliation.

    In a chilling example of the censorship powers of the DMCA, this website was taken down only a week before the election. Kathleen's DMCA claims were clearly bogus (she claimed copyright on public records) but according to the DMCA, this doesn't matter — when a DMCA takedown notice is filed, the ISP removes the site, then has fourteen days to notify the owner of the website of the alleged infringment, whereupon the owner can file a counter-notice.

    The problem here, is that the DMCA is clearly being abused — and by the time a counter notice could be filed, the election will be over. The owner of the site has no recourse, and in this way any information that is damaging to a candidate can be censored until after the election.

    The only penalties, according to the DMCA section 512, for filing a fradulent notice are that the filer will have to pay the expense of putting the site back up (and attourney fees, if applicable). Well, in the case of a political election, the filers wouldn't even fight the counter-notice and would be happy to pay the penalty to restore the site — after the election has passed.

    Clearly, this was never the intended purpose of the DMCA — but what she has done doesn't appear to be in any way illegal.

    Is this the future of politics? Will political candidates be able to censor information on the web at any time using bogus copyright claims and the DMCA?

(Disclaimer: as I mentioned, I became involved with this election when I created a campaign site for a different candidate — not the one that was taken town)
The Internet

Submission + - Vint Explains How Email Got Internet Connected (internetnews.com)

Submitted by darthcamaro
darthcamaro writes: In 1988, commercial email systems were not connected the Internet. As we all know, email became THE killer app of the Internet so how did it get connected? Speaking at Interop, Internet Founder Vint Cerf explained that is was just a question of asking the U.S gov't for permission.

"In 1988, we got permission to connect MCI mail to the Internet," Cerf said. "That broke the policy log jam."

Submission + - When users want malware

Submitted by johnjaydk
johnjaydk writes: How do You handle users who insists on installing malware? I'm running a nice tight ship where users can't install stuff and now I face a rebellion because I don't allow them to install malware. I can't even explain the concept of malware to them.
Android

Submission + - Developing Android Apps Visually (drdobbs.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dr. Dobb's has a three part blog (all three parts are up; this is part 1) about using App Inventor. The focus isn't so much on the technology but rather the discussion of "can visual development let anyone program?" If so, is App Inventor really visual development? And should we be teaching real programmers about visual development. Most of the conclusions are in part 3. As a byproduct, they show you how to put App Inventor output on the Market and there are two games on the market (free) that resulted from the articles.

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