Somehow I think a link to a story describing the content of the court room or what was questions the witness was asked would make this story more interesting. Can someone provide this link? or did I just miss it?

News articles should answer: What, Where, When, How and (sometimes) Why?

So... when?

Why not state when this network error was propagated? Did it happen this year some time?

I briefly investigated secure telephone communication options for citizens after our Canadian government followed the US down the path of personal privacy invasion by passing soft wiretapping laws.

My opinion on the best solution for secure telephone communication is Zfone from Phil Zimmermann and company. Seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZRTP

...and now the rant...

I do believe that the massive wiretapping issue in our countries is one of the greatest threats to our future freedom and democracy.

Now that we have given away these freedoms... never expect to get them back. It is too much power for any governing body to give away. As you can see now... the new US president is moving away from earlier promises made in this regard.

And we should not wait for someone to come into office that chooses to abuse this power.

The only solution to stop having your rights infringed upon, is to take matters into your own hands. Please... encrypt your voice communication. And use open source for your own protection and peace of mind.

Experiment:

1. A second cat button is added to allow one to reject the EULA.

2. The cat and the buttons are in a box where no one can see.

3. The monitor is shut off when the EULA is displayed.

4. Box is shaken or otherwise agitated for about a minute.

5. Your monitor is turn on and the software may or may not work. (repeat from step 3 if EULA still displays)

6. Use the software or dont, but we will never know whether the EULA was ever agreed to or not.

Note: this provides working software about half the time. I can show you a complex formula that statistically matches this probability perfectly, but a working model for the underlying reality is out of reach using current scientific understanding.

Maybe you should include a description of what a meme is first. Or am I the only one who doesn't use and never heard anyone speak this word before?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

So the US military wants all our ISP's to install a chip to monitor all network traffic and then store all those connection locations so it can later analyze this data. All under the guise of protecting our beloved copyrighted content.

Anyone see the possibility of other uses/motivations here?

I believe that this US agency may be attempting to disprove their working theory that file sharing correlates to terrorism. ... Na... even they cant stomach that sort of crap anymore.

FYI: Yes I DID READ the article.

"The more Mono evolves, the less likely Microsoft is to use patent claims or some other dirty trick to bring down the platform"

The words 'less likely' do not inspire confidence. I cannot think of a time where Microsoft has not used every tool available to further its market position in every area it can... when it is in a position to do so and it furthers its profit margins or market size.

I have never used .net, so I cannot speak of its power or weakness as a platform tho.

Good luck to the Mono team in pealing yourself away from MS and being accepted by open source developers

I wish Microsoft would get their act together and stop producing software which is so easy to pirate.

Then we could stop making criminals of all these poor people just trying to get the most readily available and easily copied office tools around.

But it is not really in Microsoft's best interest to do this. now is it!

There is no question that the US army is now in the business of recruiting young adults into their folds by releasing exciting kill simulation video games to the public.

* in 2002 the US army commissioned and released the video game "America's Army" for public release. They are not in the game market to make money. I suggest that they are attempting to associate the "fun" (kill or be killed) from video games into the concept of military service.

There is no doubt that a large number of underage youths will play these games.

It is a fact that video games all use a known addiction cycle: stimulous, response, reward. That is also implemented in casino slot machines... for obvious reasons.

The question is: is it ethical to allow this message to be sent to our children, who are more likely to be convinced my marketing. and less likely to discern fact from fruit.

I think he is probably right on both count a) and b). But the discussion of such should not be shot down, because it is soo obvious that this is what they are trying to do.

The US military is not in the video game business because they want to turn a profit.

...and I will add that I did search for the 2 things I already searched and found on Wikipedia. I searched for these in Britannica, and as expected... there was no entry for these.

Encyclopedia Brit is sorely incomplete and antiquated for fast "jumping into" information.

A corporate based model will never compete with the vast army of entries from people who actually use it on a daily basis and have vested interest in making it better. Although it is funny to see them try (see: Microsoft vs Linux on virus defense)

Why is there any discussion of Encyclopedia Britannica here at all?

They are irrelevant and do not provide any alternative to Wikipedia.

Encyclopedia Britannica has been dead for many years and the only reason anyone mentions them at all now is because they either have a dusty set on the bookcase or they remember referencing them in the antiquated school library.

This article and the first link on it appears to be a marketing attempt for Encyclopedia Britannica.

Do not be convinced. When it comes to debating the pro's and con's of which to reference when you need information... well there is no comparison.

This article is meant to make you feel that they are in competition. They are not. Wikipedia has won and EB should stop wasting paper and just close.

Reminiscent: I remember over 10 years ago being in a mall and there was a guy in a booth selling EB. I asked him what the companies solution for online access was and he said that they did not need to do that as they were a print based company. He was right and still right. They should remain in print and disappear with it too.

I had been looking for a way to anonymously set up a web server and stumbled apon the .onion domain which runs on the tor network. I think, but not sure, that this is the same network that bitorrent runs on.

Anyhow, it allows you to setup a server that you can provide a domain name for others to find, but the actual physical location of the box is hidden behind several layers of proxy redirection.

If I was looking to setup a system where it would be difficult for others to seize the online assets... I would start with an .onion server... and then add proxy and other hidden mechanisms on top of that.

One problem is that it requires the browsers to be running a tor client in order to interpret and make proper requests to access .onion pages. This makes the site somewhat less useable to the general public. As a solution to this.. I'd put up multiple front end proxy cache servers to pass the anonymous data through a regular (.com, etc) domain. That would allow faster access to the data and to a wider potential audience.

For more info, check out: ".onion" on wikipedia.

That ice will make clean smooth vodka.

This is a comment to those who have replied to say "this article is crappy" and "it should not be on slashdot".

The purpose of slashdot is to spur comment. By commenting, be it positive or negative, you are indirectly stating that the article SHOULD BE on slashdot and the posting decision was correct.

The only way to show that you do not appreciate the current slashdot menu selection of articles is to not interact with it at all. Specifically: don't reply to the article.

If you are worried because people are still replying to an article that you deem has no merit. Then you can console yourself in the knowledge that it really is an appropriate slashdot article and that you are not the target market slashdot is attempting to address.

Just stay silent or move on and maybe... just maybe if your lucky, the moderators will allow a more appropriate article through for you to provide your insightful opinion on tomorrow.

BTW: I downloaded the source code for the windows drivers in question and I will confirm: it is tight, yo.

In my experience, companies will not bother to collect debt from people when the cost to do so is greater then the debt owed.

All you have to do is: make it clear to them that it will cost them more then 98 Euro to recover these costs.

Several replies already provide some good ideas for this. Just put a few of them together and present your plan to the collector.

Another good idea is to continually call them... just call to "discuss your bill" over and over. Delay by asking them to explain various phrases on your EULA. Repeatedly ask for a manager and waste their time. Leave messages for them to call-back. And complain when they don't.

I am doubtful that this will effect your credit rating in any way. To effect your credit, the company would need to be associated with a credit agency. This is a membership cost that I doubt this company would be interested in paying. Companies that work with credit reporting agencies do so because they are assuming upfront risk in dealing with you. Like a line of credit. This company is not concerned about risk because there is essentially no upfront cost.

In fact, in essence this company IS the collection agency. Because they are trying to collect on payments that the customer is generally not willing to pay (because the customer was tricked into the payment). There is no value in selling your debt to a collection agency because they have already tried themselves... and no collection agency would pay a dime for your "fake debt".

Please do not pay this tax.