Golygydd Max - Slashdot User

Submission + - I, for one, welcome our new patent overlords (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Friday December 10, 2010 @08:02AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: A significant event took place yesterday: potentially the biggest software patent troll of all has finally woken from its slumbers: Today Intellectual Ventures enforced its rights and filed patent infringement complaints in the US District Court of Delaware against companies in the software security; dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and Flash memory; and field-programmable gate array (FPGA) industries. Intellectual Ventures was founded by Microsoft, Intel and a Seattle based lawfim.

Submission + - Schneier: We need nuclear-style cyberwar hotlines (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by strawberryshakes on Friday December 03, 2010 @08:08AM

strawberryshakes writes: Cyberwar is the new nuclear war. Bruce Schneier says governments should establish hotlines and treaties outlining the dos and don'ts of a cyberwar, just as they would any other war.

Sarah Palin 'Target WikiLeaks Like Taliban' 1425

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday December 01, 2010 @01:45PM from the name-calling dept.

DMandPenfold writes "Sarah Palin, who is widely tipped as a possible Republican candidate for president in 2012, has said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be hunted down in the way armed forces are targeting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda." So that means we should spend billions of dollars and not catch him? Good plan.

Submission + - Modeling software showed BP cement as unstable (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold on Friday November 12, 2010 @08:25AM

DMandPenfold writes: Advanced modelling software analysed the cementing conditions for BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil well as unstable, days before the blast that killed 11 oil rig workers and let millions of barrels of oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico.

Halliburton, the company that carried out the cement job, used its own modelling software called OptiCem, to support arguments that more stability...

Submission + - Microsoft admits OpenOffice.org is a contender (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Thursday October 14, 2010 @07:19AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: Microsoft has unwittingly admitted that OpenOffice.org is a rival, by launching a three-minute video of customers explaining why they switched to Microsoft Office from OpenOffice.org. Glyn Moody writes: "You don't compare a rival's product with your own if it is not comparable. And you don't make this kind of attack video unless you are really, really worried about the growing success of a competitor. [Microsoft] has now clearly announced that OpenOffice.org is a serious rival to Microsoft Office, and should be seriously considered by anyone using the latter."

Submission + - Are desktop firewalls overkill? (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence on Wednesday September 22, 2010 @10:50AM

Barence writes: Should you be running firewalls on your desktop and server machines? PC Pro's Jon Honeyball argues the case for switching off Windows firewalls and handing over responsibility for security to server-based solutions. "I’d rather have security baked right into my network design than scattered willy-nilly around my desktops and servers," Honeyball argues. "It seems to me that there’s much sense in concentrating your security into a small number of trusty gatekeepers rather than relying on a fog of barely managed faux security devices. Of course, it puts your eggs into fewer baskets, but it does mean these gatekeepers are easier to control and manage: monitoring them in real-time becomes routine."

Submission + - Trojan blamed for Spanish air crash (techworld.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Monday August 23, 2010 @06:29AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: A plane crash that killed 154 people in 2008 might have been partly connected to the infection of an important ground safety system by malware, a Spanish newspaper has claimed.

Submission + - UK Government refuses to ditch Microsoft IE6 (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Monday August 02, 2010 @07:35AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: The UK government has said it will not upgrade its departments computers from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 because it would not be 'cost-effective'. A recent online petition posted to Number10.gov.uk received 6,223 signatures that called for the “Prime Minister to encourage government departments to upgrade away from Internet Explorer 6” due to its alleged vulnerability to attack, and because it requires web developers to specially craft sites to support the browser. This raises the question, what is the cost of an upgrade compared to a massive security breach?

Germany Takes Legal Steps Against Facebook 138

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 08, 2010 @05:37AM from the verboten-knowledge dept.

crimeandpunishment writes "Not only are Germany and Facebook not friends, they might end up opponents in a courtroom. Germany has begun legal action over privacy. A German data protection official accuses Facebook of illegally saving personal data of people who don't use the site and haven't given permission to access their private information. Germany, which has also launched an investigation into Google over its Street View mapping program, has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world."

Submission + - BP robot seriously hampers oil spill containment (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Friday June 25, 2010 @05:07AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: A high-tech effort by BP, to slow the oil gushing from its ruptured well head, led to a large accident yesterday that forced the company to remove a vital containment cap for 10 hours.

Submission + - Foxconn to close factories in China (techworld.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Friday June 11, 2010 @07:35AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: Foxconn, the manufacturer whose clients include Apple, Dell and HP, is on the verge of pulling out of China, after a spate of suicides. The CEO has accused workers of killing themselves for financial compensation, and the company has stopped suicide payments to suicide victims' families. Foxconn CEO also told investors that it is considering moving its production operations to Taiwan, and automating many parts of its business, in a move which could see 800,000 workers lose their jobs.

Submission + - Simon Phipps: Why we still need OSI (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by ChiefMonkeyGrinder on Tuesday May 25, 2010 @09:28AM

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes: In response to a comment on yesterday's blog, Simon Phipps writes about the old rivalry between Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative (OSI). "I have been (and in plenty of ways still am) a critic of OSI, as well as a firm supporter and advocate of the FSF. I believe OSI should be a member organisation with a representative leadership. ... But the OSI still plays a very important and relevant role in the world of software freedom." For instance: Licence approvals have become a much more onerous process, with the emphasis on avoiding creation of new licences, updating old or flawed ones and encouraging the retirement of redundant ones. It would be great to see the stewards of some of the (in retrospect) incorrectly approved licences ask for their retirement.

Submission + - HP's new data center cooled by glacial wind. (ibtimes.com.au)

Submitted by Arvisp on Friday February 12, 2010 @06:32AM

Arvisp writes: The center would be situated in North East England near Billingham and utilize the glacial wind blowing off of England's North sea to lower temperatures of IT equipment and plant rooms.
The Wynyard takes in the cool air, filters it accordingly and collects it in the management system and is then forced over the front of the server racks before it is exhausted. The result is a hall with a constant temperature of 24C. When the winds become even colder than usual, the exhausted heat is mixed with the outside air to maintain temperatures.

Hackers Attack AU Websites To Protest Censorship 334

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 10, 2010 @11:49AM from the and-it-has-a-funny-name-too dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A band of cyber-attackers has taken down the Australian Parliament House website and hacked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's website in coordinated protests against government plans to filter the Internet. The group responsible, called Anonymous, is known for coordinated Internet attacks against Scientology and other groups in the past. It recently turned its attention against the AU government after it said in December that it would block access to sites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse."

New Russian Botnet Tries To Kill Rivals 136

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday February 10, 2010 @11:10AM from the there-can-be-only-one dept.

alphadogg writes "An upstart Trojan horse program has decided to take on its much-larger rival by stealing data and then removing the malicious program from infected computers. Security researchers say that the relatively unknown Spy Eye toolkit added this functionality just a few days ago in a bid to displace its larger rival, known as Zeus. The feature, called "Kill Zeus," apparently removes the Zeus software from the victim's PC, giving Spy Eye exclusive access to usernames and passwords. Zeus and Spy Eye are both Trojan-making toolkits, designed to give criminals an easy way to set up their own "botnet" networks of password-stealing programs. These programs emerged as a major problem in 2009, with the FBI estimating last October that they have caused $100 million in losses."

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