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Kaspersky CEO Wants End To Online Anonymity 537

Posted by Soulskill from the but-my-computer-is-already-broadcasting-an-ip-address dept.
A user writes "Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of well-known computer security company Kaspersky Labs, is calling for an end to the anonymity of the Internet, and for the creation of mandatory 'Internet passports' for anyone who wishes to browse the Web. Says Kaspersky, 'Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport ... the internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public, and it was wrong ... to introduce it in the same way.' He calls anonymity 'the Internet's biggest security vulnerability' and thinks any country that doesn't follow this regime should be 'cut off.' The EFF objects, and it's likely that they won't be the only ones."
The Internet

Lockheed Snags $31 Million To Reinvent the Internet, Microsoft To Help 326

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the reinventing-the-wheel dept.
DARPA has awarded a $31 million contract to megacorp Lockheed Martin which will, with some assistance from Microsoft, attempt to reinvent the Internet and make it more military-friendly. "The main thrust of the effort will be to develop a new Military Network Protocol, which will differ from old hat such as TCP/IP in that it will offer 'improved security, dynamic bandwidth allocation, and policy-based prioritization levels at the individual and unit level.' Lockheed will be partnered with Anagran, Juniper Networks, LGS Innovations, Stanford University and — of course — Microsoft in developing the MNP. Apart from that, Lockheed's own Information Systems & Global Services-Defense tentacle will work on amazing new hardware."

Comment Absolutely Beautiful (Score 1) 215

by Giga-Byter (#29407225) Attached to: Students Take Pictures From Space On $150 Budget
In my opinion, it's an incredible feat!

But most of all I'm amazed of how they've been able to successfully retrieve the device after its landing. It could have landed in a sea, or even in another country. It also could have been disintegrated before it had reached the ground.

P.S. Because of such enthusiasts we can be certainly sure that NASA isn't fooling us: there are no elephants out there and the Earth is round indeed.

Submission + - Google Groups Used to C&C Botnets (symantec.com)

Submitted by
oDDmON oUT
oDDmON oUT writes: ""Maintaining a reliable command and control (C&C) structure is a priority for back door Trojan writers. ... Symantec has observed an interesting variation on this concept in the wild. A back door Trojan that we are calling Trojan.Grups has been using the Google Groups newsgroups to distribute commands." according to Symantec employee Gavin O Gorman.

He goes on to state that "The Trojan itself is quite simple. It is distributed as a DLL" and while the decrypted commands indicate it is used "for reconnaissance and targeted attacks" he does go on record as saying "It's worth noting that Google Groups is not at fault here; rather, it is a neutral party. The authors of this threat have chosen Google Groups simply for its bevy of features and versatility.""

Submission + - Ebay denies new page design is broken, lays blame (ebay.com)

Submitted by
krick-zero
krick-zero writes: "Ebay recently rolled out a new page design. Many Ebay sellers are reporting issues with missing description text, resulting in lost sales. Buyers are reporting the same intermittent issue, on multiple platforms, with multiple browsers. After complaining to Ebay customer service, one user got this response...

I have reviewed several of your listings using my computer and had several of my coworkers view your listings as well and we are seeing the complete listings. Many times when buyers are not able to see the whole description or just bits and pieces it is due to browser issues they are having. A lot of times if they simply clear out their cache and cookies or change browsers (i.e. change from Internet explorer to Firefox or vice versa) they no longer have this problem.

"

Submission + - IE8 beats other browsers in laptop battery life (anandtech.com)

Submitted by
WARM3CH
WARM3CH writes: "AnandTech tested battery life of a laptop with an AMD CPU, a laptop with an Intel CPU and netbook running Internet Explorer 8, Opera 10, Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, and Chrome. Webpages were a combination of simple and flash infested ones. IE8 had the best battery life on both laptops followed by FF+adblock and Safari had the worst battery life. On the netbook Chrome was slightly ahead of IE8. The report concludes: --Overall, Internet Explorer and Firefox + AdBlock consistently place near the top, with Chrome following closely behind. Opera 10 Beta 3 didn't do as well as Opera 9.6.4, and in a couple quick tests it doesn't appear that the final release of Opera 10 changes the situation at all. Opera in general — version 9 or 10 — looks like it doesn't do as well as the other major browsers. Safari is at the back, by a large margin on all three test notebooks. We suspect that Safari 4 does better under OS X, however, so the poor Windows result probably won't matter to most Safari users.--"

Submission + - Russia's New Holiday: Programmer's Day (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by
Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: "Russia's President Medvedev has decreed a new holiday for his country: Programmer's Day. Appropriately enough, it will be celebrated on the 256th day of the year: September 13th (September 12th for a leap year). Do programmers deserve their own holiday ahead of other professions? Should the rest of the world follow suit?"
GNU is Not Unix

Why Linux Is Not Yet Ready For the Desktop 1365

Posted by timothy from the choose-your-own-misadventure dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Every now and then a new- or old-media journalist tries to explain to everyone why Linux is not yet ready for the desktop. However all those men who graduated from their engineering universities years ago have only superficial knowledge about operating systems and their inner works. An unknown author from Russia has decided to draw up a list of technical reasons and limitations hampering Linux domination on the desktop." Some of the gripes listed here really resonate with me, having just moved to an early version of Ubuntu 9.10 on my main testing-stuff laptop; it's frustrating especially that while many seemingly more esoteric things work perfectly, sound now works only in part, and even that partial success took some fiddling.
The Military

Better Living Through Nukes? 432

Posted by Soulskill from the brb-registering-my-hemispherical-pool-business dept.
perkonis writes "So, you've got 23,000 nukes laying about and no one to use them on. What to do with them? Well, you blow up stuff for fun and profit. Some of the ideas range from good on paper (such as mining oil shale) to just downright bad (such as making a new Panama Canal). Making a big ditch by blowing up nukes — what could possibly go wrong?"
Businesses

Microsoft and Yahoo Discussing Search Partnership 115

Posted by Soulskill from the here-we-go-again dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian reports that Microsoft and Yahoo are talking about a search engine partnership as they desperately try to come up with something, anything, to take on Google. 'Although there is no suggestion that Microsoft's failed bid will be resurrected, the two companies are believed to be discussing ways they can link up to combat the growing power of their chief rival, Google. Quoting sources close to the discussions, the authoritative Dow Jones All Things Digital blog said that "the talks between the pair are preliminary and wide-ranging."'"
Government

UK ISPs Could Be Forced To Block Or Restrict P2P 231

Posted by Soulskill from the expanding-the-job-description dept.
MJackson writes "The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has published a draft set of proposals for tackling illegal broadband file sharing (P2P) downloads by persistent infringers, among other things. The proposals form part of a discussion piece concerning the role that a UK Digital Rights Agency (DRA) could play. UK Internet Providers will already be required to warn those suspected of such activity and collect anonymised information on serious repeat infringers, though they could soon be asked to go even further. The new discussion paper, while not going into much detail, has proposed two potential example solutions to the problem. UK ISPs could employ protocol blocking or bandwidth restrictions in relation to persistent infringers. In other words, P2P services could be blocked, or suspected users might find their service speeds seriously restricted."
Input Devices

Ideas For the Next Generation In Human-Computer Interfaces 170

Posted by timothy from the literally-exploding dept.
Singularity Hub writes "For decades our options for interacting with the digital world have been limited to keyboards, mice, and joysticks. Now with a new generation of exciting new interfaces in the pipeline our interaction with the digital world will be forever changed. Singularity Hub looks at some amazing demonstrations, mostly videos, that showcase new ways of interacting with the digital world." Along similar lines, reader shakuni points out a facial expression-driven user interface reported on News.com for operating, say, an iPhone, explaining "This device is tiny and fits into the ear and measures movements inside the ear due to changes in facial expression and then uses that as input triggers. So [tongue out] starts or stops your iPod Touch; [Wink] rewinds to the last song; and [smile] replays the same song."

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"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"

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