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Security

A New Approach to Mutating Malware 80

mandelbr0t writes "CBC is reporting that researchers at the Penn State University have discovered a new method of fighting malware that better responds to mutations. From the article: 'The new system identifies a host computer with a high rate of homogeneous connection requests, and blocks the offending computer so no worm-infected packets of data can be sent from it.' This is a change from previous methods, which compared suspected viruses against known signatures. Mutations in malware took advantage of the time-delay between the initial infection and the time taken by the anti-virus system to update its known signatures. This new system claims to be able to recognize new infections nearly instantly, and to cancel the quarantine in case of false alarm."
Privacy

Some States Say National ID Cards 'Make Life Easier' 287

VE3OGG writes "Some places, like Maine, have outright rejected the idea of a nationally mandated ID card amid privacy, legal and security concerns. On the other side of the fence some states, such as California and New Jersey, have said that they welcome the National ID card and that it will make 'life easier'. One New Jersey official said 'All you are getting in e-government for the most part are things that don't require strong two-factor identification,' the official said referring to security that requires something beyond a user name and password. 'But as we move forward and start to deliver more and more complicated services, I think that people for the most part will want to know their government has implemented strong measures [with National ID cards]'."
Hardware Hacking

Army of Davids Beats Pentagon Procurement 412

chris-chittleborough writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that 'a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in [Iraq] in 30 days.' Compare this to the Automated Biometric Identification System, a multi-megabuck Pentagon project now 2 years old. With bureaucracy increasingly strangling innovation, will agile smaller businesses be able to accomplish what once required a sprawling government project?"
Java

Java's Greatest Missed Opportunity? 362

jg21 writes "It looks like Bruce Eckel has hit the nail on the head again. No sooner did he finish stirring debate by writing about the 'departure of the Java hyper-enthusiasts,' previously discussed here on Slashdot, than he now rubs salt in the wound by highlighting in AJAXWorld Magazine how and why Java missed its golden opportunity to become the language undergirding Rich Internet Applications. He comments: 'We must ask why Java applets haven't become ubiquitous on the internet as the client-side standard for RIAs....This is an especially poignant question because Gosling and team justified rushing Java out the door (thus casting in stone many poorly-considered decisions) so that it could enable the internet revolution. That's why the AWT and Applets were thrown in at the last second, reportedly taking a month from conception to completion.'"

Comment It's not only about music, its a big deal (Score 1) 397

First, Im TOTALLY against DRM

Being able to remove copy protection is a good thing for some users, and completely irrelevant for everyone else. No user is ever going to say: 'Oh no. I can now play the music I bought for my PC on my Mac. I must install a patch so I can't do that anymore.'

Its not ONLY about music, DRM From Wikipedia :
"Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is any of several technologies used by publishers to control access to and usage of digital data (such as software, music, movies) and hardware, handling usage restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work."
We are talking about information, and WHO, WHERE and HOW, a user can access to that information (like a private document). Yes, maybe to the end-user this is not a BIG deal, but this could give access to sensitive information inside an organiztion... the whole DRM design goes to hell.

Just my 2 cents
Cheers

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