Raindeer - Slashdot User

Submission + - How to be the world's greatest ISP (arst.ch) 3

Submitted by Raindeer on Wednesday December 09, 2009 @08:02PM

Raindeer writes: We're not always aware of it here in the USA, but there are many ISPs out there in the world who do things quite differently than what we're used to. Some of these ISPs ideas are even really good. Ars surveys the global ISP landscape and paints a picture of what a dream ISP might look like.

So what would it take to craft a truly "cool" ISP, one that attracted legions of adoring customers who sing its praises to everyone they meet? Fortunately, ISPs around the world are doing innovative things at prices that will make your jaw drop. Join us on our worldwide quest to find the coolest ISPs in the world, then get ready to write your own service provider a strongly worded note once you know what else is possible.

Submission + - Nominum calls Open Source DNS 'a recipe for proble

Submitted by

Raindeer

on Wednesday September 23, 2009 @07:19AM

Raindeer writes: "In an effort to promote its new Cloud based DNS service SKYE, Nominum one of the commercial DNS-software, providers slaundered all open source/freeware DNS packages. It said: "Given all the nasty things that have happened this year, freeware is a recipe for problems, and it's just going to get worse.(....) So, whether it's Eircom in Ireland or a Brazilian ISP that was attacked earlier this year, all of them were using some variant of freeware. Freeware is not akin to malware, but is opening up those customers to problems. " This has the DNS community fuming. Especially when you know Nominum was one of the companies affected by the DNS Cache poisoning problem of last year. Something PowerDNS, MaraDNS and DJBDNS all open source weren't vulnerable too."

Submission + - UAE hacking Blackberry's for interception (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

Raindeer

on Tuesday July 14, 2009 @07:32AM

Raindeer writes: "It seems the UAE had some trouble reading Blackberry communications and turned to SS8 for a solution. SS8 suggested an unobtrusive program to be loaded on all Etisalat's customers Blackberry's. 'Trust me guv, nobody will notice'... yeah right. The programme eats batteries for lunch and the server it needed to communicate back with was overloaded (IDIOTS, like you don't know how many devices there are!). Annoyed Blackberry users saw their devices slow down to a crawl and started to complain. A little investigation later and a programmer found out the so called performance upgrade rolled out to all Blackberry users was a snooping programme by the SS8 company."

Submission + - Etisalat bungles Blackberry spyware deployment

Submitted by

nwetters

on Tuesday July 14, 2009 @04:29AM

nwetters writes: "Dubai's Gulf News is reporting a bungled attempt by the national telco Etisalat to deploy spyware to Blackberry devices. ITP.net gives some details of the battery-sapping "performance patch", which has been uploaded to the Blackberry support forum last week. On Sunday Etisalat issued a two paragraph statement apologising for "a phased software upgrade...that led to extra consumption of the handset battery.". It described the patch as a "routine upgrade process", but said it had stopped issuing it as a precautionary measure.""

Comment Cellphone data to be stored 12 months (Score 2, Informative) 232

by Raindeer on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @09:41AM (#28621161) Attached to: Cellphones Increasingly Used As Evidence In Court

Cellphone traffic data has to be stored for 6-24 months in the EU, exactly for this reason. It's useful for law enforcement. The Dutch Parliament yesterday accepted a law that requires this data to be stored for 12 months (who called who, where). Internet data (who used what IP-adress at what moment, who mailed who, but not what websites were visited, gmail, twitter etc.) will only need to be stored for 6 months.

Submission + - German Supreme Court bans voting machines (heise.de)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03, 2009 @08:20AM

An anonymous reader writes: The german Supreme Court has just declared the use of voting machines during the last elections unconstitutional. The decision does not prohibit voting machines per se, but defines strong requirements for transparency and accountability in the future use of these machines. It is thought that in the upcoming State-elections, authorities will have to revert to paper and pencil voting. Spiegel-online also carries the story.

Submission + - Iphone users use 640MB per month (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Raindeer on Tuesday March 03, 2009 @08:12AM

Raindeer writes: T-mobile NL saw a great increase in mobile data usage from the introduction of the iPhone 3G. The monthly usage of mobile increased from 12Terabyte to 80Terabyte a month. How stunning a number that is, I only realized last night in bed. The average iPhone user uses 640MB per month. T-mobile also said it was 30-40 times more than the average mobile data user at 16-22MB per month.

Submission + - Secret Government Legal Memos Released to Public (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Dekortage on Tuesday March 03, 2009 @08:10AM

Dekortage writes: After the September 11 terrorism attack in 2001, U.S. government lawyers provided broad interpretations of the law authorizing President Bush to use military within the U.S., conduct raids and wiretaps without obtaining search warrants, suppress freedom of speech and the press, abolish foreign treaties unilaterally, ignore the Geneva Conventions, and more — all in the name of fighting terrorism. "Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties. Not only is that thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good," said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before releasing the previously-secret documents on Monday.

Submission + - German Constitutional Court Bans Voting Machines

Submitted by Dr. Hok on Tuesday March 03, 2009 @07:25AM

Dr. Hok writes: The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled today (German, babelfish translation here) that the use of voting machines in the previous federal election was against the constitution. Voting machines are not illegal per se, but with these machines it wasn't possible to verify the results after the votes were cast. The verification procedure by the German authorities was flawed, too: only specimens were tested, not the machines actually used in the elections, and the detailed results (including the source code) were not made public. The results of the election remain legally valid, though. The ruling is here (in German).

Submission + - Germany: Voting computers ruled unconstitutional 1

Submitted by

Micha Lenk

on Tuesday March 03, 2009 @07:03AM

Micha Lenk writes: "The German Federal Supreme Court has ruled that the use of electronic voting machines for the General Election (Bundestagswahl) 2005 has been unconstitutional. The judges acknowledge the claim that that the voters were not able to supervise neither the cast votes nor the vote counting itself.

They also decided that the election remains valid because of the low share of electronically cast votes. Approximately two million out of 61.9 millionen voters had voted using electronic voting machines in the election almost four years ago."

Submission + - German Supreme Court says No to Voting Computers

Submitted by

WalterSobchak

on Tuesday March 03, 2009 @05:49AM

WalterSobchak writes: "Germany's supreme court banned current voting machines from further elections. While the court found no issues with the elections that had already been held, they banned the current technology from further use, deeming them too in-transparent and not tamper proof.

The court specifically said that this decision is not "technophobic", and applies only to the currently used technology (mainly NEDAP machines), If new technology meets the high standards required for elections, it could be used for elections. Also, the court said that given proper technology, even voting by internet is imaginable

Source: Spiegel Online (German)"

Submission + - RIPE 55 Sings For IPv6 1

Submitted by on Friday October 26, 2007 @06:49PM

An anonymous reader writes: To promote the switch to IPv6, Gary Feldman gave an exciting performance of "The Day The Routers Died" at the RIPE 55 meeting in Amsterdam. The song (to the tune of "American Pie") included lyrics like "be persuaded to upgrade it or your network will die". Gary received a standing ovation.

Submission + - The day the Routers died (secret-wg.org)

Submitted by

Raindeer

on Friday October 26, 2007 @11:44AM

Raindeer writes: "The RIPE 55 meeting has just concluded. There was much debate on what to do on the imminent depletion of the unallocated IPv4 pool in 2010. We could do nothing or we could create a market place and facilitate transfer of IP-adresses, but it's all a train wreck waiting to happen. This is best shown however by a beautiful song "The day the routers died" also available on Youtube written and performed by Gary Feldman. So please all upgrade to IPv6 soon, or else you will not get 40Gbit/s to your mother."

Submission + - U.K. kids get RFID chips in school uniforms

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Thursday October 25, 2007 @05:50PM

Stony Stevenson writes: Ten schoolchildren in the United Kingdom are being tracked by RFID chips in their school uniforms as part of a pilot program. If the program proves successful as a way to hasten registration, simplify data entry for the school's behavioral reporting system, and ensure attendance, Trevor Darnborough, whose company, Darnbro, filed for a patent on securing RFID tags to clothing, hopes other schools will be interested.

David Clouter, a parent and founder of Leave Them Kids Alone, a children's advocacy group, condemned the plan. "With pupils being fingerprinted and now this it seems we are treating children in a way that we have traditionally treated criminals," he told the Doncaster Free Press.

Submission + - UK conspired with mobile companies on roaming (timesonline.co.uk)

Submitted by

Raindeer

on Thursday October 25, 2007 @05:42PM

Raindeer writes: "The Times revealed that the UK government actively conspired with phone companies to keep mobile roaming charges high. A Freedom of Information Request revealed that the UK Government were "not happy bunnies", when the European Union wanted to lower charges for mobile roaming in the EU dramatically. Ewan Sutherland, a leading telecoms policy consultant, said: "I hadn't fully appreciated that the Government had gone over to the Dark Side to that extent." Even now the charges are excessively high at 49 eurocent per minute. But the chances that the EU would actually support a simple idea that would promote competition are marginal. Data roaming charges (for Brits) are even more excessive at up to 21USD per Mbyte."

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