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Comment Re:Cell phones (Score 3, Informative) 108

by brass1 (#32216806) Attached to: Taiwanese Researchers Plug RFIDs As Disaster Recovery Aids
That doesn't destroy the devies themselves. They're still turned on and chattering away looking for a network, at least until the batteries go flat. For most phones with a moderately charged battery, even an iPhone, that could be a day or more.

Even then, there's still records at your cell phone company that can be used to triangulate your last known position to at least tens of feet; usually better.

Comment Re:Reading comprehension (Score 1) 485

by brass1 (#28292505) Attached to: Supreme Court Declines Case Over Techs' Right To Search Your PC

There is a big difference between seeing drugs on the back seat, or a dead body inside the car, and reporting that, and reporting on drugs found under the carpet in the trunk or in the glovebox if the car was brought in for an oil change...

The mechanic would have had no reasonable need to have searched those two areas to perform the job he was hired to do. Same with a PC tech, if someone brings in a PC to have a CD-ROM drive replaced, there is absolutely NO REASON for the tech to need to search the browser cache or the images directory...

The problem is, because there are different standards of service, what you you've purposed a construction that's beyond what the law and judges can apply equally. Each machanic does different things to the vehicals they're working on and because of that there would be different expectations as to what is private and what is not. A forgotten bag of weed under the seat? Oh, as part of your oil change service, we vacuum the inside carpet. Found a key of coke under the spare? They may have been inspecting it to see if it was still ok; they wouldn't want you to be surprised by a rotten spare on the side of the highway.

Shift this idea to computers. The cache directories are off limits, how about folders on the desktop named DONT_LOOK_HERE? The content of the system desktop backgrounds directory? Which parts of the system are private and which aren't, and how to you apply this equally? This is why you either abandon your expectation of privacy or you don't. If you turn your property over to a third party, you have abandoned any expectation you have in relation to that property.

As for not doing a filesystem search during a cdrom install, if I'm a pc tech, I'm going to run the standard diagnostics on each and every machine that enters my shop for two reasons. First, 90% of the machines I'm going to see are infected with something and I can't ethically allow that machine to leave the store in that state. Second, of that box has a ram problem, I want to know about it before I put a screwdriver to the case. It's not unreasonable to assume that a diagnostic scan is going to alert to a pile of suspiciously named image files in an obscure directory.

Comment Re:No it wouldn't (Score 5, Insightful) 1127

by brass1 (#26882669) Attached to: Draconian DRM Revealed In Windows 7

The only thing they will respond to is a mass boycott. And considering this is Windows, which is pretty much locked into most large scale networks as it is, not to mention end users' homes, good luck.

It seems to have worked with Vista.

If Microsoft's largest customers (IT departments) reject this version of windows over it's anti-piracy measures just like they rejected last version of windows over it's performance issues, you'll get your wish.
Security

Submission + - Server Company Hacked - 6000 Clients Data At Stake (layeredtech.com)

Submitted by
tsj5j
tsj5j writes: "On the evening of 9/17/2007, LayeredTech's support system was infiltrated. Upon closer inspection, LayeredTech determined that up to 5000 to 6000 clients could potentially be affected. Till date, LayeredTech has still not publicly confirmed the amount of data retrieved by the hackers. In fact, they have been very publicly unclear about the amount of damage done. LayeredTech is now cautioning all of it's clients to change passwords. Potential data compromised includes : Root/WHM/etc. passwords, Credit Card information, Helpdesk passwords, and any other private information exchanged via the support system. Personally identifiable information as well as email addresses may have been compromised as well. This may cause a blow to LayeredTech's reputation, who has always been a major player in the Dedicated Hosting industry.

The Layered Technologies support database was a target of malicious activity on the evening of 9/17/2007 that may have involved the illegal downloading of information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and server login details for 5 to 6,000 of our clients. Layered Technologies responded immediately to this specific incident by conducting a comprehensive security audit of internal processes and procedures.
"
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - Xscale confirmed in iPhone, by Intel!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I hope you can read italian, or at least machine-translate it. You were right, there's an ARM in the iPhone and it's a Marvell Xscale.

http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/SoleOnLine4/Finanza %20e%20Mercati/2007/01/grusconi_180107_bucci_intel .shtml?uuid=b94d3c02-a6c8-11db-a363-00000e25108c&D ocRulesView=Libero

Dario Bucci, CEO of intel italy, interviewed by the financial newspaper "ilSole 24 Ore" confirmed that their former technology operates at the heart of the iPhone.

this is the passage:
I micropchip del nuovo Apple iPhone sono Intel?
No, non sono nostre ma di Marvell, la società cui abbiamo ceduto le attività che comprendevano l'architettura XScale. Apple è comunque uno dei principali clienti Intel per quanto riguardo le flash memory e nel nuovo terminale ci sono le nostre Nand.

more or less:
The chips in the new Apple iPhone are made by Intel?
No, they're Marvell's. We sold our Xscale architecture to this company. However Apple is one of our best customers for flash memories and our NANDs are featured in the new handheld.
Handhelds

Submission + - OpenMoko Schedule Announced

Submitted by
levell
levell writes: "The schedule for the OpenMoko Open source, Linux based Neo1973 smart phone was posted to the community mailing list by Sean Moss-Pultz this morning. On Feb 11, free phones will be sent to key community developers and the community websites/wiki/bug tracker will be available. Then on March 11 ("official developer launch") we'll be able to buy an OpenMoko for $350 (+p&p) (worldwide from openmoko.com). After allowing some time for innovative, slick software to be created there will be a "Mass market launch" at which point Sean hopes that "your mom and dad will want one too"."
Encryption

Submission + - First AACS BluRay Content Decrypted

Submitted by kad77
kad77 writes: The anonymous coder 'muslix64', who earlier implemented the first public AACS decryption algorithm for use on HD-DVD movies (ed: need slashdot ref) (ed: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=119871), has decrypted files from the AACS protected BluRay disc "Lord of War". His methodology was described in another doom9 forum thread (ed: http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=120869), as a "known-plaintext attack". BluRay's "BD+" enhanced DRM layer was not involved in this decryption, and has not been addressed to date. Ultimately, software content players were the weak point that lead to key discovery.
Sony

Submission + - Sony says 'no' to porn on Blu-ray Disc

Submitted by
reversible physicist
reversible physicist writes: "From an article in Infoworld:

The choice of which high-definition disc format to use was "kind of made for us, so everything we are replicating right now is in the HD DVD format," said Robby D, a director at popular adult film maker Digital Playground Inc. "As far as I understand, Sony has said to the replicators that if you replicate adult, you'll lose your license."

Many believe that Sony's Betamax video tape format, while technologically superior to VHS, died because the adult movie industry was barred from using Betamax, noted Jake Richter, an analyst at Jon Peddie Research. "Is Sony doomed to repeat one of the mistakes of the past? It seems like that may be the case," he wrote in a report."
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - Sun releases

Submitted by
htd2
htd2 writes: "Sun has released the source for Fortress a new highly portable language designed among other things for modern HPC applications. Fortress is designed to make exploiting parallelism as simple as possible while supporting a range of syntax designed to support modern HPC applications. The initial release is of a Fortress interpreter and a subset of the Fortress Language is available from http://fortress.sunsource.net/

Fortress is released under a BSD license"
Handhelds

Submission + - Inside the iPhone: 3G, ARM, OS X, 3rd Partyware

Submitted by DECS
DECS writes: After heading off the top ten myths of the iPhone, Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted has written a series of articles looking "Inside the iPhone," exploring why Apple didn't target faster 3G networks in EDGE, EVDO, HSUPA, 3G, and WiFi, a substantiated look at how the iPhone is indeed running OS X (contrary to reports that it isn't), what it means to users and developers, and how ARM is involved, in Mac OS X, ARM, and iPod OS X, and why the supposedly "closed system" Apple describes for the iPhone won't preclude third party development in Third Party Software.
Nintendo

Submission + - Woman dies after "Hold your wee for a Wii cont

Submitted by
NewsCloud
NewsCloud writes: "A 28 year old woman was found dead of water intoxication hours after taking part in an Entercom-owned radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest:
Can you hold "it" in for a long time? We're having you drink water every 15 minutes! And the last person to go to the bathroom wins the Wii!
According to Wikipedia: "Water intoxication can be prevented if a person's intake of water and electrolytes closely matches his or her losses. The body's regulatory mechanisms provide a very generous margin of safety if the two are imbalanced, but some extreme activities (such as heavy, prolonged physical exertion), as well as disease states, can overwhelm or impair these mechanisms.""
Upgrades

Submission + - In Soviet Russia, Underwear Cleans You

Submitted by mikeinvt
mikeinvt writes: Finally, the fabric technology we've all been waiting for. Sponsored by the U.S. Air Force, a group has fabricated t-shirts and underwear that don't need to be washed for weeks on end. Quoting the article, which quotes Jeff Owens, one of the scientists who made the fabric:
"During Desert Storm, most casualties were from bacterial infections — not accidents or friendly fire. We treated underwear for soldiers who tested them for several weeks and found they remained hygienic. They also helped clear up some skin complaints."

Nanoparticles are bonded to the fabric that repel water, oils and bacteria. Suddenly, the laundry services at Google are less appealing.

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