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The Military

Military Appoints General To Direct Cyber Warfare 132

An anonymous reader writes news from The Guardian, excerpting: "The US military has appointed its first senior general to direct cyber warfare – despite fears that the move marks another stage in the militarisation of cyberspace. The newly promoted four-star general, Keith Alexander, takes charge of the Pentagon's ambitious and controversial new Cyber Command, designed to conduct virtual combat across the world's computer networks. He was appointed on Friday afternoon in a low-key ceremony at Fort Meade, in Maryland."
Microsoft

Microsoft Facing Class-Action Suit Over Xbox Live Points 107

An anonymous reader tips news that a lawyer in Pennsylvania has filed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that the company's handling of Xbox Live transactions is, in some cases, fraudulent. "Samuel Lassoff, of Horsham, PA, said an invoice he received earlier this month from Microsoft included charges for purchases he couldn't complete due to a balky download system — and he claimed it wasn't an accident. Microsoft 'engaged in a scheme to unjustly enrich itself through their fraudulent handling' of his account, Lassoff charged in papers filed earlier this week in US District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania. ... 'Microsoft breached that contract by collecting revenues for digital goods and services which were not provided,' Lassoff said in his lawsuit."
Earth

Researchers Pooh-Pooh Algae-Based Biofuel 238

Julie188 writes "Researchers from the University of Virginia have found that current algae biofuel production methods consume more energy, have higher greenhouse gas emissions and use more water than other biofuel sources, such as switchgrass, canola and corn. The researchers suggest these problems can be overcome by situating algae production ponds behind wastewater treatment facilities to capture phosphorous and nitrogen — essential algae nutrients that otherwise need to come from petroleum."
Image

Facebook Master Password Was "Chuck Norris" 319

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Facebook employee has given a tell-all interview with some very interesting things about Facebook's internals. Especially interesting are all the things relating to Facebook privacy. Basically, you don't have any. Nearly everything you've ever done on the site is recorded into a database. While they fire employees for snooping, more than a few have done it. There's an internal system to let them log into anyone's profile, though they have to be able to defend their reason for doing so. And they used to have a master password that could log into any Facebook profile: 'Chuck Norris.' Bruce Schneier might be jealous of that one."

Comment Re:Doesn't matter. (Score 1) 498

This ruling may follow the letter of the law in a narrow interpretation, but not the spirit of the law.

Anyone that is already using Glider already has the ability to see any of the encounters in the game. While the purpose of other copyright-circumventing devices is to display content the user hasn't economically paid for, with Glider the user has already paid for seeing all of the content.

The intended purpose of the law was to protect revenue streams of companies by ensuring that users pay for access to copyrightable works. Blizzard is using the law in this instance to protect their revenue stream by preventing other players from quitting the game, not using it to ensure that unauthorized users don't have access.

The real problem is that Blizzard is saying 'This using broke the cheating rule, therefore they were in violation of the EULA, therefore they weren't an authorized user, therefore any attempt to go around that protection is against the law', but glider's primary purpose is to allow cheating.

(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title;

Circumventing Warden is not the primary purpose of Glider, but rather is a secondary function in order to allow the primary purpose.

Communications

Submission + - Apple and Cisco to share iPhone name

ackatack writes: The BBC is reporting that Apple and Cisco have come to an agreement regarding the use of the iPhone brand name that allows for both companies to use the name. Furthermore, the two will partner on products in the areas of security, consumer and business communications. From the story: "In a joint statement, Cisco and Apple said both companies could use the word iPhone on their products worldwide. All lawsuits connected with dispute have been dismissed."
Security

Ex-judge Gets 27 Months on Evidence From Hacked PC 610

netbsd_fan writes "A former California judge has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for possession of illegal pornography, based entirely on evidence gathered by an anonymous vigilante script kiddie in Canada. At any given time he was monitoring over 3,000 innocent people. The anonymous hacker says, "I would stay up late at night to see what I could drag out of their computers, which turned out to be more than I expected. I could read all of their e-mails without them knowing. As far as they were concerned, they didn't know their e-mails had even been opened. I could see who they were chatting with and read what they were saying as they typed."

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