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Censorship

China Says US Uses Facebook To Spread Political Unrest 274

crimeandpunishment writes "A Chinese government-backed think tank says the US and other western governments use Facebook and other social networking sites to spread political unrest. Their report says, 'We must pay attention to the potential risks and threats to state security as the popularity of social-networking sites continues to grow,' and calls for increased scrutiny of the sites."

Comment Re:Gartner is shilling (Score 1) 1213

then maybe M$ will get the message through their thick skulls!

Yes, how dare they make a new product and sell it?! We'll teach them the hard way, and maybe they'll learn that they're just expected to go on supporting their old products, without shamelessly trying to make more revenue!

Privacy

Court Allows Unmasking of P2P Downloaders 244

bricko writes "A federal appeals court says copyright-infringing downloaders can now be outed. If you use or have used P2P, this may interest you. From Wired: 'The RIAA detected what it claimed to be infringing activity on an IP address the university linked to the student. The unidentified student moved to quash a federal judge’s order that the university forward the student’s identity to the RIAA. The student asserted a First Amendment right of privacy on the Internet, in addition to a fair-use right to the six music tracks in question. The appeals court ruled in the RIAA’s favor (PDF) after balancing a constitutional right to remain anonymous against a copyright owner’s right to disclosure of the identity of a possible “trespasser of its intellectual property interest."'"
Communications

RCN P2P Settlement Is Not Even a Slap On the Wrist 100

Ars covers the settlement of the RCN P2P throttling class-action lawsuit, which lets the company walk away without admitting guilt, without paying affected users, and without any meaningful restraint on their network management practices. "[The] settlement is due to be finalized on June 4. ... The case has largely flown under the radar. Yesterday, a notice ... was issued that alerted RCN customers to the settlement, and one Ars reader was aghast at the terms. Those terms provide nothing for users affected by RCN's practices. Instead, they require the cable company to change its network management practices. These changes are in two parts. ... These cessation periods would be retroactive. ... A moment's math will tell you that, when the settlement is finally approved, one cessation period will already have ended and the other will be ending soon. Once both cessation periods are over, RCN is allowed to implement whatever throttling regime it wants. Given that a federal court has just removed the FCC's authority to regulate network management, RCN appears to have carte blanche to single out BitTorrent and other P2P traffic for special throttling attention after November 1, 2010."
Hardware Hacking

DIY 80GB iPod Touch 110

An anonymous reader writes "Having recently acquired an iPod Touch, DeviceGuru blogger Rick Lehrbaum soon found himself with an 80GB iPod paperweight knocking around and collecting dust. Then it hit him: why not use a Pogoplug as an iPod server, effectively filling his nifty new iPod Touch with 80GB of music whenever he has WiFi access? The how-to article at DeviceGuru.com explains how a Pogoplug and iPod Touch combined with free web services at pogoplug.com combine to form the 'PogoPod System.' It also introduces the Pogoplug's new UPnP support, and briefly reviews a couple of UPnP media-rendering iPhone and iPod Touch apps."
First Person Shooters (Games)

Tremulous Switching To Xbox Live, Exclusively 43

An anonymous reader writes "Darklegion Development and Microsoft have apparently been working on a new version of Tremulous for the Xbox 360. Timbor, project founder and a main developer of Tremulous, said this in a recent announcement: 'What does this mean for you? You will now be able to play Tremulous on Xbox Live with thousands of other gamers, earning achievements and showing off your gaming skill. In the best interest of maintaining a steady and secure Tremulous playerbase, Tremulous is going to be exclusively available for Xbox Live. Existing infrastructure will no longer receive official support. Players who have already been playing for at least three months can apply for a €5/$7 coupon as a show of our appreciation of your enthusiasm so far! What does this mean for the community? Hopefully nothing! While the production of Tremulous switches from its current open source development to a closed source environment handled by the very capable and experienced Microsoft engineers, the efforts of the community will still be valued. In this collaboration we have made it very clear that the Tremulous community is very important to the game, and Microsoft agrees with us on this point. We are confident that this move will not stifle the creative output of the community.'"

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