58084177
submission
Barence writes:
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has issued a sharp response to petitioners calling for his site to "allow for true scientific discourse" on holistic healing. The petition, currently running on the Change.org site, claims that much of the information on Wikipedia relating to holistic approaches to healing is "biased, misleading, out of date, or just plain wrong". It has attracted almost 8,000 supporters at the time of publication.
Wales's response to the petition, posted on the same page, is far from conciliatory: "No, you have to be kidding me," he writes. "Every single person who signed this petition needs to go back to check their premises and think harder about what it means to be honest, factual, truthful. What we won't do is pretend that the work of lunatic charlatans is the equivalent of 'true scientific discourse'. It isn't."
54542909
submission
Barence writes:
The latest tests from Dennis Publishing's security labs saw Microsoft Security Essentials fail to detect 39% of the real-world malware thrown at it. Dennis Technology Labs (DTL) tested nine home security products on a Windows 7 PC, including Security Essentials, which is distributed free to Windows users and built into Windows 8 in the form of Windows Defender. While the other eight packages all achieved protection scores of 87% or higher — with five scoring 98% or 99% — Microsoft's free antivirus software protected against only 61% of the malware samples used in the test. Microsoft conceded last year that its security software was intended to offer only "baseline" performance".
54099763
submission
Barence writes:
The vice president of the European Commission's Competition unit has warned Nokia not to become a "patent troll". Nokia is in the process of selling its devices business to Microsoft, giving rise to fears that the remaining part of Nokia will make more aggressive use of its patents portfolio.
Vice president Joaquin Almunia said that the commission had dismissed the possibility that "Nokia would be tempted to behave like a patent troll" when it cleared the way for Microsoft to acquire Nokia's devices division – but warned that "if Nokia were to take illegal advantage of its patents in the future, we will open an antitrust case."
"I sincerely hope we will not have to," said Almunia.
53498423
submission
Barence writes:
Anti-spam outfit, Spamhaus, has called on the UK government to fine those who are running internet infrastructure that could be exploited by criminals.
Those who leave open Domain Name Server (DNS) resolvers vulnerable to attack should be fined, if they have previously received a warning, said chief information officer of Spamhaus, Richard Cox. When Spamhaus was hit by a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack – the biggest ever recorded at more than 300Gbits/sec – open DNS resolvers were used to amplify the hit, which was aimed at one of the organisation’s upstream partners.
"Once they know it can be used for attacks and fraud, that should be an offence," Cox said. "You should be subject to something like a parking ticket... where the fine is greater than the cost of fixing it."
51810625
submission
Barence writes:
Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth claims Apple will follow Ubuntu's lead and converge the iPhone and MacBook product lines. Speaking to PC Pro to mark the launch of Ubuntu 13.10, Shuttleworth said that the failed Ubuntu Edge smartphone — an attempt to bridge mobile and desktop computing devices — had set an example that others will follow.
"We’ve seen a very interested ripple go through the industry, and an uptick in interest in convergence," Shuttleworth added. "People are saying yes, mobile processors are catching up with the desktop. When Apple announced the iPhone 5s, it called the processor 'desktop-class', and I don’t think that was an accident – it was sending what we think is a very clear signal that it will converge the iPhone and the MacBook Air."
50469787
submission
Barence writes:
The wild man of antivirus software, John McAfee, has been forced to deny reports of his own death.
Internet reports circulating last night claimed the hard-living security software entrepreneur had died after one too many drink and drugs sessions. However, McAfee has taken to his Twitter account in the past few hours to assure everyone that he's still alive, and hasn't mislaid his sense of humour. "I felt great when I went to bed last night. I had such great plans," tweeted McAfee, alongside a link to a report — now hastily withdrawn — that claimed he had died from an overdose.
49678859
submission
Barence writes:
In the world of online fraud, a fake fan on Instagram can be worth five times more than a stolen credit card number. In a sign of the growing value of social network "likes", the Zeus virus has been modified to create bogus Instagram "likes" that can be used to generate buzz for a company or individual, according to cyber experts at RSA, the security division of EMC.
These fake "likes" are sold in batches of 1,000 on hacker forums, where cybercriminals also flog credit card numbers and other information stolen from PCs. According to RSA, 1,000 Instagram "followers" can be bought for $15 and 1,000 Instagram "likes" go for $30, whereas 1,000 credit card numbers cost as little as $6.
48989269
submission
Barence writes:
Mozilla is proposing that the Firefox browser collects data on users' interests to pass on to websites. The proposal is designed to allow websites to personalise content to visitors' tastes, without sites having to suck up a user's browsing history, as they do currently.
"Let’s say Firefox recognises within the browser client, without any browsing history leaving my computer, that I’m interested in gadgets, comedy films, hockey and cooking," says Justin Scott, a product manager from Mozilla Labs. "Those websites could then prioritise articles on the latest gadgets and make hockey scores more visible. And, as a user, I would have complete control over which of my interests are shared, and with which websites."
48512551
submission
Barence writes:
Dropbox has kicked off its first developer conference with the stated goal of replacing the hard disk. "We are replacing the hard drive," said Dropbox CEO Drew Houston. "I don’t mean that you’re going to unscrew your MacBook and find a Dropbox inside, but the spiritual successor to the hard drive is what we’re launching."
The new Dropbox Platform includes tools for developers that will allow them to use Dropbox to sync app data between devices. The company's new APIs will also make it easier for app developers to include plugins that save to Dropbox, or choose files stored in the service for use within apps.
45808199
submission
Barence writes:
Ubuntu has shelved the idea of moving to rolling releases, and will continue to release a new version every six months. Earlier this year, Ubuntu developers discussed the idea of moving to rolling releases, with new features added to the OS as and when they were ready. However, In an interview with PC Pro, Canonical CEO Jane Silber said the developers had taken a "cold, hard look at our long-standing practices" and decided to stay with twice-yearly releases. It has, however, cut support on non-LTS releases from 18 to nine months.
44932507
submission
Barence writes:
Major British retailers such as Argos and Tesco are mis-selling Windows RT devices as Windows 8 PCs, PC Pro has discovered. The confusion over Microsoft's ARM-based version of Windows could lead to consumers buying the wrong machines, and the wrong software to go with them. Argos, for example, recommends Norton Mobile Security as an add-on for its mis-labelled Windows 8 machine, despite that product only working on Android and iOS.
