Borealis - Slashdot User

Submission + - The Much Dreaded Copy Protection In Most PC Games

Submitted by DCJW on Wednesday September 05, 2007 @02:24PM

DCJW writes: Copyright measures are increasingly becoming bothersome to some gamers. There would be no issues whatsoever with copyright protection, especially if it's minor like popping in a CD/DVD into the drive so that it can be verified. But when all manners of ridiculously imposing measures like activation servers, that's where the line is drawn. Obviously, such measures are not popular. A recent example of this was the recently launched game, BioShock. When do we as consumers draw the line? At what point does it become too much of a hassle. And how is it in our interests when all we are getting in return is even more inconvenience?

Submission + - AMD to Open R500 Specs 1

Submitted by

tbcpp

on Wednesday September 05, 2007 @02:06PM

tbcpp writes: "A quick report from the kernel summit: AMD's representative at the summit has announced that the company has made a decision to enable the development of open source drivers for all of its (ATI) graphics processors from the R500 going forward. There will be specifications available and a skeleton driver as well; a free 2D driver is anticipated by the end of the year. The rest will have to be written; freeing of the existing binary-only driver is not in the cards, and "that is better for everybody." Things are looking good on this front. More in the kernel summit report to come."

Submission + - RIAA v. the People: Four Years Later (askstudent.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @09:37AM

An anonymous reader writes: This week, we will mark the fourth year anniversary of the RIAA's legal campaign against music piracy where the RIAA has threatened, settled or filed lawsuits against more than 20,000 of its own customers. Inspite of all this, P2P is as popular as ever. RIAA might be winning legal battles, but it is losing the war on music piracy

Submission + - NBCU wants the internet "filtered"

Submitted by yet another steve on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @04:39AM

yet another steve writes: NBC/Universal wants far more than filtering of material uploaded to YouTube. They want broadband providers (ISPs) themselves to be required to filter internet content. Putting aside the obvious technical reasons why it won't work, the idea of mandatory filtering by your provider of everything you send and receive on the internet sounds a lot like... China. Killing freedom on the net to protect the sitcom.

This seems dangerous, intrusive and unprecedented... and I'm a little surprised it hasn't received more attention.

Check out: http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1019
and http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9745325-7.html?ta g=blog.2

Honestly, I haven't found a single source that seems to understand the gravity of the precedent. People are outraged that a corporation in a broadcast it controlled censored some words (not defending that act, btw), but this is the idea that EVERY packet you send and receive will be required to be monitored and FILTERED. It seems an unbelieveable proposal no matter what the intent.

They do this in China, right?

Submission + - Sourceforge elbows in new privacy policy (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 04, 2007 @01:42AM

An anonymous reader writes: In an email a received from Sourceforge some hours ago, they announce their brand new privacy policy. Compared to their current privacy policy, this new document really lays out what they can do with your personal information. Here's an excerpt from the cookies section:

The ads appearing on SourceForge.net are delivered to visitors by DoubleClick, Inc. ("DoubleClick"), SourceForge's current third party web advertising partner. The third party advertising technology that SourceForge uses on SourceForge.net uses information derived from a user's visits to SourceForge.net to target advertising within this site. In addition, SourceForge's advertisers may use other third party advertising technology to target advertising on this site. In the course of serving advertisements to SourceForge.net, DoubleClick may place or recognize a unique cookie on a user's browser. Information about users' visits to SourceForge.net, such as the number of times users have viewed an ad (but not users' names, addresses, or other personally-identifiable information), are used to serve ads to visitors. As with other cookies, and consistent with SourceForge's policy on cookies stated above, the user may block or delete such cookies from the user's drive or memory. For more information about DoubleClick, DoubleClick's use of cookies, and how to "opt-out" of DoubleClick's email/information lists, please click here: http://www.doubleclick.net/us/corporate/privacy. SourceForge has no access or control over third party cookies.

That last part about their having no control over 3rd party cookies (emphasis mine), is not quite accurate: they don't have to choose to advertise with DoubleClick.

This from a do-gooder, community based web site! I thought as I read that passage. Now I realize this sort of thing (ad servers like DoubleClick snooping as you browse the web) is going on at a lot of sites, but shouldn't I expect better from Sourceforge? Or should we commend Sourceforge for coming clean with a clearer explanation of what their existing operating privacy policy is?

Submission + - Beijing Police Launching Animated Web Patrols (geoffrobinson.net)

Submitted by

geoffrobinson

on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @10:08AM

geoffrobinson writes: "And by "animated" they mean cartoons. From the Associated Press:

Police in China's capital said Tuesday they will start patrolling the Web using animated beat officers that pop up on a user's browser and walk, bike or drive across the screen warning them to stay away from illegal Internet content. Starting Sept. 1, the cartoon alerts will appear every half hour on 13 of China's top portals, including Sohu and Sina, and by the end of the year will appear on all Web sites registered with Beijing servers, the Beijing Public Security Ministry said in a statement. China stringently polices the Internet for material and content that the ruling Communist Party finds politically or morally threatening. Despite the controls, nudity, profanity, illegal gambling and pirated music, books and film have proliferated on Chinese Internet servers.
"

Submission + - A&P Supermarket sues over spoof vid seek $1M (c-n.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28, 2007 @09:58AM

An anonymous reader writes: NJ Kids made a music video they called Produce Paradise, lost their jobs, and now A&P is suing them for 1 million dollars in damanges

CALIFON — It has already cost them their jobs. Now, the fictitious music video "Produce Paradise," created by two Hunterdon County brothers as a way to parody the outlandishness of gangster rap by using veggies as props, could cost them $1 million.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., parent company of the supermarket chain A&P, recently filed a defamation lawsuit in state Superior Court in Flemington against college students Mark and Matthew D'Avella, who until recently stocked shelves at the Califon A&P.

The full article: http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007 0828/NEWS/708280303

The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5iDpxucNFE

Submission + - No RealID? You'll Need a Passport (cnn.com)

Submitted by mmurphy000 on Thursday August 16, 2007 @02:47PM

mmurphy000 writes: According to CNN:

Americans may need passports to board domestic flights or to picnic in a national park next year if they live in one of the states defying the federal Real ID Act.

Note that these are the same passports which are already shipping with RFID tags.

Submission + - 9th Circuit Very Skeptical of NSA Surveillance (mercurynews.com)

Submitted by iluvcapra on Thursday August 16, 2007 @01:18PM

iluvcapra writes: Yesterday before a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the US government argued that two class action lawsuits against the government and AT&T should be dismissed, because to litigate them in open court would cause the revelation of state secrets. The lawsuits allege that the government has installed a vast system of electronic surveillance gear at internet gateways along the US west coast to monitor all internet traffic, and that this information is monitored without a warrant, even when both endpoints are domestic. The panel was extremely skeptical of the governments argument:

"Is it the government's position that when the country is engaged in a war, that the power of the executive when it comes to wiretapping is unchecked?" asked 83-year-old Judge Harry Pregerson, one of the court's staunchest liberals, of a Bush administration lawyer. "The king can do no wrong, is that what it comes down to?"

The government was unwilling to even provide a sworn affadavit that the eavesdropping was only of foreign correspondence. If the 9th Circuit allows the lawsuits to proceed, the government will appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Submission + - NYPD Report Says Young Men are Terrorists (yahoo.com)

Submitted by

inKubus

on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @04:20PM

inKubus writes: "According to this story from the AP, Average citizens who quietly band together and adopt radical ways pose a mounting threat to American security that could exceed that of established terrorist groups like al-Qaida, a new police analysis has concluded.

The New York Police Department report released Wednesday describes a process in which young men adopt a philosophy that puts them on a path to violence. It also says that more prempetive intelligence gathering is needed since most potential homegrown terrorists "have never been arrested or involved in any kind of legal trouble".

They "look, act, talk and walk like everyone around them," the study adds. In the early stages of their radicalization, these individuals rarely travel, are not participating in any kind of militant activity, yet they are slowly building the mind-set, intention and commitment to conduct (terrorism). Although they continually mention Islam, it's pretty obvious they are referring to all young men, and want to increase their surveilance powers to "make sure (young men) aren't going the 'wrong way'.""

Submission + - Anime downloaders are getting sued in Singapore

Submitted by on Wednesday August 15, 2007 @03:06PM

An anonymous reader writes: GOING online to download content may soon offer less anonymity in Singapore than it used to, particularly for those getting copyrighted material illegally.

According to legal experts, the laws — and copyright owners — are starting to scale the walls of privacy in the name of intellectual property (IP).

The latest foothold they have secured is a court decision ordering Internet service provider (ISP) StarHub to reveal the identity of about 1,000 subscribers who have downloaded Japanese animé cartoons illegally.

Animé distributor Odex, which won the case, is likely to seek compensation of up to $5,000 from these individuals and an undertaking to halt such illegal downloads, The Straits Times reported.

While the enforcement net may not have been cast this wide in Singapore before, corporate counsel and Nominated MP Siew Kum Hong told Today it was "only a question of time" before widescale legal action taken elsewhere — such as those by the Recording Industry Association of America — were replicated here.

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