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Comment Re:Where do free items fit in? (Score 1) 194

by nmx (#26225103) Attached to: Doubts Multiply About the "Long Tail"

Blaming Disney is a distraction. Focus on the real source of the problem. It's the same thing as blaming movie studios for not letting you watch a film on a non-HDCP display, when in fact it is the operating system (Windows Vista or Mac OS X) that enforces this restriction on you.

This goes both ways. No one is forcing Disney to use the "disable skip" feature. HDCP is required by the hardware (at least for Blu-Ray). Who do you think pushes for things like HDCP? The studios. Yes, that includes Disney. The operating systems wouldn't enforce these restrictions if the media companies weren't pushing for them.
Government

Paper Ballots Will Return In MD and VA 420

Posted by timothy from the but-this-baby-is-soaked-in-bathwater dept.
cheezitmike writes "According to a story in the Washington Post, 'Maryland and Virginia are going old school after Tuesday's election. Maryland will scrap its $65 million electronic system and go back to paper ballots in time for the 2010 midterm elections. In Virginia, localities are moving to paper after the General Assembly voted last year to phase out electronic voting machines as they wear out. "The battle for the hearts and minds of voters on whether electronic systems are good or bad has been lost," Brace said. The academics and computer scientists who said they were unreliable "have won that battle."'"
Windows

Attack Code Found For Recent Windows Bug 184

Posted by Soulskill from the oh-by-the-way dept.
CWmike writes "Just a day after downplaying the vulnerability that caused it to issue an out-of-cycle patch last week, Microsoft warned customers late yesterday that exploit code had gone public and was being used in additional attacks. 'We've identified the public availability of exploit code that now shows code execution for the vulnerability addressed by MS08-067,' said Mike Reavey, operations manager of Microsoft's Security Response Center, in a post to the MSRC blog. 'This exploit code has been shown to result in remote code execution on Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, and Windows 2000.'"
The Courts

Judge Tells RIAA To Stop 'Bankrupting' Litigants 332

Posted by CmdrTaco from the also-bake-them-cookies dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Boston judge who has consolidated all of the RIAA's Massachusetts cases into a single case over which she has been presiding for the past 5 years delivered something of a rebuke to the RIAA's lawyers, we have learned. At a conference this past June, the transcript of which (PDF) has just been released, Judge Nancy Gertner said to them that they 'have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers ... to understand that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it ...' She also acknowledged that 'there is a huge imbalance in these cases. The record companies are represented by large law firms with substantial resources,' while it is futile for self-represented defendants to resist. The judge did not seem to acknowledge any responsibility on her part, however, for having created the 'imbalance,' and also stated that the law is 'overwhelmingly on the side of the record companies,' even though she seems to recognize that for the past 5 years she has been hearing only one side of the legal story."

Comment Re:My SOP for Bank E-mails (Score 1) 272

by nmx (#25327065) Attached to: US Financial Quagmire Bringing Out the Scammers

1. Delete e-mail.

2. Log in to bank via their web site.

What scares me is that while this guards against the garden variety phishing attack, it can't protect me from an ISP DNS compromise.

That's what SSL is for. The name on the SSL certificate won't match the address of the site. OR, even if they do make a certificate for wachovia.com (for example), it will be self signed. Your browser will pop up some kind of warning. Firefox will make it almost impossible to proceed (this is what everyone's been complaining about, but now you can see why it's useful).
Cellphones

Canadian Firms Get Behind OpenMoko/FreeRunner 140

Posted by timothy from the watching-the-tail-lights dept.
mario writes "Now that the OpenMoko platform has stabilized enough to provide the OM2008 image (supporting the three major toolkits), things are starting to heat up. Linuxdevices is reporting on the start of a port of Devicescape's connect application. Koolu (another Canadian company) is also doing development for its W.E. phone (a branded FreeRunner). Which leads me to ask: Where are the American companies?"

BusinessWeek Advocates Microsoft Piracy 181

Posted by Zonk from the not-like-they-have-anything-to-lose dept.
xzvf writes "In a lengthy editorial, BusinessWeek advocates allowing users in China and India to pirate Microsoft software so that it can obtain the same level of market share there as it has in the US and Europe. From the piece: 'If Microsoft succeeds in discouraging piracy of Windows in China and India, it is far more likely to drive the user of the pirated software into the Linux camp than it is to steer them into the land of paid-up Windows users. Microsoft's IP management strategy in China and India should instead focus on securing the victory of Windows on the desktops of all PC users. That may require deliberately lax enforcement efforts against pirated copies of Windows for the short and medium term. Only after the Linux threat lessens might Microsoft have the luxury of tightening up piracy protections, as it is now doing in the West. Microsoft can afford to be patient.'"
Databases

Firebird 2.0 Final Released 158

Posted by Zonk from the reborn dept.
Samyem Tuladhar writes "After 2 years in development, the Firebird Project today officially releases the much-anticipated version 2.0 of its open source Firebird relational database software during the opening session of the fourth international Firebird Conference in Prague, Czech Republic."

CEO Shawn Hogan Takes on MPAA 491

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the how-long-till-it-stops dept.
IAmTheDave writes "Shawn Hogan, CEO of Digital Point Solutions, has found himself on the receiving end of an MPAA lawsuit claiming he downloaded a copy of 'Meet the Fockers' on Bittorrent. Mr. Hogan both denies the charges as well as claims he already owns the movie on DVD. After being asked to pay a $2500 extortion fee, Mr. Hogan lawyered up and has vowed to challenge and help change the MPAA's tactics. 'They're completely abusing the system,' Hogan says. Although expecting to pay well over $100,000 to defend himself, he claims 'I would spend well into the millions on this.'"

Nintendo Revolution Renamed 'Wii' 966

Posted by Zonk from the weeeeeeeeeeee dept.
Retroneous writes "The Nintendo Revolution has had its name changed to the Nintendo Wii." Confirmation on the official Revolution site. Update: 04/27 16:32 GMT by Z : More information available from a Gamasutra article: "New details on the disc format have also been revealed: 'Instead of a tray, a single, innovative, self-loading media bay will play both 12-centimeter optical discs used for the new system as well as Nintendo GameCube discs. Owners will have the option of equipping a small, self-contained attachment to play movies and other DVD content.'"

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