Epu - Slashdot User

Comment Totally. AppLocker keys can be physically gotten. (Score 1) 501

by Epu on Sunday September 27, 2009 @09:47AM (#29555669) Attached to: AU Government To Build "Unhackable" Netbooks

Yeah. Physical security loss means hackable. I read this old cold-boot attack paper in Communications of the ACM months ago, and it was old even then. IIRC, one can use a can of compressed air to chill the ram in a computer, remove it, and read its contents in an alternate machine environment designed to save out the contents of the ram. Then you extract security keys from the saved-out-contents, and do whatever you like. I'm pretty sure the acm paper directly referenced retrieving the keys of the microsoft disc encryption software.

Comment Wasn't that the original point of WebMD? (Score 1) 563

by Epu on Monday January 12, 2009 @12:03PM (#26417879) Attached to: Obama Proposes Digital Health Records

It's been so long, and it's been rebranded and refocused, but I thought that WebMD was originally targeted to provide such a service - digital records that would replace / glue together the mess of health care services. Can anyone confirm that?

Jack Thompson Disbarred 522

Posted by timothy on Thursday September 25, 2008 @02:41PM from the it-burns-it-burns dept.

Sockatume writes "The Florida Supreme Court has approved Judge Dava Tunis' recommendations for the permanent disbarment of John B. "Jack" Thompson, with no leave to reapply and $43,675.35 in disciplinary costs. The ruling is a step up from the enhanced disbarment that had been suggested by the prosecution, which would have forbidden him from reapplying for ten years. Thompson has 30 days to appeal the ruling before the disbarment is permanent. Thompson responds to the ruling."

OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta Released 390

Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @01:11PM from the better-each-time-mostly dept.

Sean0michael writes "OpenOffice.org has announced their 3.0 Beta is ready for testing. The new version includes some great enhancements, including MS Office 2007 import filters, an improved notes feature, a built-in Solver component, and an Aqua interface for Macs. The site has a complete list of Beta features. Download your beta release from their site."

CCTVs Don't Work in the UK 571

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @12:14PM from the your-rights-offline dept.

ShakaUVM writes "People who give up a little bit of liberty for a little bit of security deserve neither, the saying goes. But what happens when people give up so much liberty their entire country resembles an Orweillean dystopia — but the pervasive monitoring doesn't help to solve any crimes? That's what is happening in the United Kingdom today. While the Guardian tries to put a good spin on the entire fiasco, the fact remains that CCTVs only help with 3% of all street robberies, the very crimes they were supposed to be best at protecting. Should England finally move to eliminate its troubling state surveillance program?"

Spore, Mass Effect DRM Phone Home For Single-Player Gaming 900

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @11:32AM from the incredibly-lame-ideas dept.

Tridus writes "The PC version of Mass Effect is going to require Internet access to play (despite being a single-player game), as its DRM system requires that it phone home every 10 days. Sadly, Spore will use the same system. This will do nothing to stop piracy of course, but it will do a heck of a good job of stopping EA's new arch-enemy: people playing their single player games offline." Is this better or worse than requiring a CD in the drive to play? Update: 05/07 17:17 GMT by T : According to a message from Technical Producer Derek French (may require a scroll-down) on the Bioware forums, there is indeed an internet connection required, but only for activation, not for all future play. Update: 05/08 04:10 GMT by T : Mea culpa. As reader David Houk points out, the 10-day window is in fact correct as initially described, so don't count on playing this on any machine without at least some Internet connectivity.

Earth May Once Have Had Multiple Moons 186

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday May 07, 2008 @05:42AM from the many-moons-ago dept.

fyc writes "A new study from NASA's Ames Research Center has suggested that the collision of Earth and a Mars-sized object that created the Moon may also have resulted in the creation of tiny moonlets on Earth's Lagrangian points. 'Once captured, the Trojan satellites likely remained in their orbits for up to 100 million years, Lissauer and co-author John Chambers of the Carnegie Institution of Washington say. Then, gravitational tugs from the planets would have triggered changes in the Earth's orbit, ultimately causing the moons to become unmoored and drift away or crash into the Moon or Earth.'" The longest-lasting of such Trojans could have persisted for a billion years. They would have been a few tens of kilometers in diameter and would have appeared in the sky like bright stars.

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