Comment Alfred E. Neuman ? (Score 0) 410
Bright kid! - but why did they choose a photo of him that makes him look like Alfred E. Neuman? ( http://weirdotoys.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/alfred_e_neuman.jpg )
Feds Bust Cable Modem Hacker 658
Several readers noted the indictment of hardware hacker Ryan Harris, known as DerEngel. Harris wrote the 2006 book Hacking the Cable Modem, explaining how to get upgraded speed or even free Internet service by bypassing the firmware locks on Motorola Surfboard modems. He has run a profitable business at tcniso.net since 2003, selling unlocked cable modems. (The site is now offline.) Harris has been charged with conspiracy, aiding and abetting computer intrusion, and wire fraud. Wired quotes Harris's reaction: "I read the indictment — it's complete bull****. I'll tell you right now I'm not going to plead guilty."
EU Wants To Redefine "Closed" As "Nearly Open" 239
Glyn Moody writes "A leaked copy (PDF) of Version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework replaces a requirement in Version 1 for carefully-defined open standards by one for a more general 'openness': 'the willingness of persons, organizations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and to stimulate debate within that community of interest.' It also defines an 'openness continuum' that includes 'non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome.' Looks like 'closed' is the new 'open' in the EU."
Comment Re:If we are voting, I vote for Castrix (Score 2, Funny) 494
"Fidel Distro" would get my vote for sure!
Comment Re:cheezburgers? (Score 2, Funny) 346
You can't have your prior art and eat it too!
Commerce Department Pushing For New "Copyright Czar" 294
TechDirt is reporting that those all-too-familiar "stats" surrounding the cost of piracy are being trotted out in an attempt to push through a new "Copyright Czar" position. "In urging President Bush to sign into law the ProIP bill, which would give him a copyright czar (something the Justice Department had said it doesn't want), the US Chamber of Commerce is claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy. Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from."
Submission + - Football field-sized kite powers latest freighter (networkworld.com) 2
coondoggie writes: "A kite the size of a football field will provide most of the power for a German heavy freight ship set to launch in December. The Beluga shipping company that owns the 460-foot Beluga said it expects the kites to decrease fuel consumption by up to 50% in optimal cases as well as a cutback of the emission of greenhouse gases on sea by 10 to 20%. Interestingly, the ship will be hauling windmills from Esbjerg, Denmark to Houston, Texas. The company that makes the kite for the German transport, SkySails, has made kites for large yachts but is targeting commercial ships with new, larger kites. And it has the ambitious goal of equipping 1,500 ships with kites by 2015.
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22225"
Submission + - Why do games still have levels? (blogspot.com) 1
a.d.venturer writes: Elite, the Metroid series, Dungeon Siege, God of War I and II, Half-Life (but not Half-Life 2), Shadow of the Colossus, the Grand Theft Auto series; some of the best games ever (and Dungeon Siege) have done away with the level mechanic and created uninterrupted game spaces devoid of loading screens and artificial breaks between periods of play. Much like cut scenes, level loads are anathema to enjoyment of game play, and a throwback to the era of the Vic-20 and Commodore 64 when games were stored on cassette tapes, and memory was measured in kilobytes. So in this era of multi-megabyte and gigabyte memory and fast access storage devices why do we continue to have games that are dominated by the level structure, be they commercial (Portal, Team Fortress 2), independent (Darwinia) and amateur (Nethack, Angband)? Why do games still have levels?
Submission + - Critical .mdb flaw Found - Microsoft may Never fix (beskerming.com) 4
SkiifGeek writes: "When independent security researcher cocoruder found a critical bug with the JET engine, via the .mdb (Access) file format, he reported it to Microsoft, but Microsoft's response came as a surprise to him — it appears that Microsoft are not inclined to fix a critical arbitrary code execution vulnerability with a data technology that is at the heart of a large number of essential business and hobby applications.
Where should vendors be required to draw the line when supporting deprecated file formats and technology? In this case, leaving a serious vulnerability active in a deprecated technology could have serious effects if an exploit were to target it, but it is a matter of finding the right balance of security and usability such that Microsoft's users are not exposed to too great a danger for continuing to use Microsoft products."
Where should vendors be required to draw the line when supporting deprecated file formats and technology? In this case, leaving a serious vulnerability active in a deprecated technology could have serious effects if an exploit were to target it, but it is a matter of finding the right balance of security and usability such that Microsoft's users are not exposed to too great a danger for continuing to use Microsoft products."
Comment Why the demo needs protection (Score 1) 529
This begs the question: Since when did demos need copy protection?
If you actually read up on what is public knowledge about SecuROM's methods of copy protection you would find that certain chunks of code are encrypted and/or converted into instructions for a proprietary virtual machine to obfuscate them.
Since a demo is often based on code that is very close, if not identical, to the gold-master release version you HAVE to protect it in the same way. Otherwise a disassembly of the demo would reveal exactly what you are trying to hide in the release version, and the nasty pirates would just replace the jumbled sections of code in the release version with the clear versions lifted from the demo.
And yes I am a game developer, and yes I am currently copy protecting a game in preparation for release. So sue me for trying to keep the PC platform alive for gaming.
If you actually read up on what is public knowledge about SecuROM's methods of copy protection you would find that certain chunks of code are encrypted and/or converted into instructions for a proprietary virtual machine to obfuscate them.
Since a demo is often based on code that is very close, if not identical, to the gold-master release version you HAVE to protect it in the same way. Otherwise a disassembly of the demo would reveal exactly what you are trying to hide in the release version, and the nasty pirates would just replace the jumbled sections of code in the release version with the clear versions lifted from the demo.
And yes I am a game developer, and yes I am currently copy protecting a game in preparation for release. So sue me for trying to keep the PC platform alive for gaming.
Comment Re:Parent knows not what it talks about (Score 1) 1509
Jeez, why is it that americans assume that there is no biotech industry outside the US? Sure no single european country does the amount of R&D in medicine that the US does, but compared to size we contribute just fine. And have lower drug prices as well...
