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Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft reinvents Bittorrent

Submitted by Anon E. Muss
Anon E. Muss writes: Microsoft has a new Secure Content Downloader tool that sounds an awful lot like Bittorrent clone. It's described as a "peer-assisted technology" where "Each client downloads content by exchanging parts of the file they're interested in with other clients, in addition to downloading parts from the server." Right now MSCD is just a time-limited preview, intended to support downloads of select Microsoft beta releases (e.g. Visual Studio 2008). If this test goes well, Microsoft will probably start using MSCD for all their large downloads. How do you feel about subsidizing Microsoft's bandwidth costs?
Networking (Apple)

Submission + - Kismac soon to become illegal (kismac.de)

Submitted by
mgv
mgv writes: "From the website: "There has not been a lot of time for KisMAC lately. However the motivation for this drastic step lays somewhere different. German laws change and are being adapted for "better" protection against something politicians obviously do not understand. It will become illegal to develop, use or even posses KisMAC in this banana republic." So, unfortunately, one of the better passive wireless network detection programs for the mac is being wound up. If you are able, download the binary and source code now."

Feed Techdirt: Taking 'Flamewar' A Bit Too Seriously: Man Drives 1,300 Miles To Burn Down Home (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
Online flamewars certainly can get nasty at times, often boiling over into quite a bit of rage -- but it's still pretty rare (and amazing) to see that anger then boil over into the real world. Last year, we wrote about a case in the UK where someone drove 70 miles to attack the guy he was sparring with online. The press referred to it as "web rage," though, rage doesn't tend to last that long. Or, perhaps it does. Here in the US we do things in bigger ways, apparently. A guy in Virginia who got into a flamewar online decided to make it a bit more literal, and drove 1,300 miles to Waco, Texas to burn down the home of one of this online enemies from a (no, this isn't a joke) picture sharing community. Not only that, but the attacker took photos of each "Welcome to State X" signs and shared them online as he made his way across the country -- to let others in the community know he was serious about going after the other guy. What did the one guy do to piss the other guy off? Apparently he had different political views and posted a silly photo claiming the other guy was a nerd. Nerd or not, he's now a convicted arsonist. He's been sentenced to 7 years in prison for burning down the other guy's home -- but it doesn't sound like the intervening time or pending jail time cooled this guy down. As the sentencing was happening, the arsonist used his cameraphone to take snapshots of the guy whose home he tried to burn down, apparently to post online as well (though, the court ordered the photos destroyed). So, while the typical admonition to those engaging in flame wars is to remember that it's a real person on the other side, we'd also like to add "who may be so crazy that they'll come burn down your house."
Censorship

Submission + - The Pirate Bay not to be censored in Sweden (thepiratebay.org)

Submitted by Naycon
Naycon writes: Eventually it looks like the Swedish police dropped the Pirate Bay from the list of sites filtered for containing child porn. The update of the filter which is scheduled for later this week won't contain the Swedish filesharing giant. The police states that the reason for this change is that the torrents containing the porn has been removed, but the Pirate Bay states that no files have been removed. Was this a try from the Swedish police to battle filesharing in a easy way? The link contains a statement from the Pirate Bay. Several Swedish newspaper also run the story.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Troll Mods are Annoying 8

Journal by florescent_beige

Back in '82 or so, I spent my time working up a Master's thesis at the U of T MechEng building. Every so often, perhaps once every two months, I'd be waylayed in the corridor by a complete stranger who had obviously wandered in off the street. Invariably, this stranger would be looking for a professor to legitimize his perpetual-motion/free-energy device/idea/theory.
Portables

Submission + - The Missing iPhone Feature -- Now at T-Mobile (nytimes.com)

Submitted by
tregetour
tregetour writes: "
Here's the basic idea. If you're willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone. When you're out and about, it works like any other phone; calls eat up your monthly minutes as usual.

But when it's in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always — you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all the other features — but now your voice is carried by the Internet rather than the cellular airwaves.


Perhaps far more revolutionary than the iPhone. Full Article"
The Internet

Submission + - Beijing accused of being world virus capital

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Chinese capital city Beijing tops the global league table for distributing viruses, a new survey has reported.

According to UK-based managed security services companyNetwork Box, Beijing accounts for 40 percent of all viruses that passed though the company's servers in June, and 5.25 percent of detected spam.

This compares with slightly lower percentages for cities in countries noted for having a malware problem. Moscow was second for spam with 5.12 percent, Seoul third with 3.58 percent, Turk in Turkey fourth with 3.4 percent, and London in fifth place on 2.47 percent, statistics that are likely to be skewed to some extent by the company's UK-based customer base.

But it is in the area of virus distribution that Beijing outpaces other cities in the Network Box figures. Its 40 percent score contrasts markedly with much smaller scores for other locations. Not all of these are prominent — the obscure town of Wattleup near Perth in Australia comes is number 2 in the chart, with 3.68 percent of viruses. Madrid in Spain is third with 2.48 percent, Taipei In Taiwan fourth with 2.35 percent, and Henan in China fifth on 1.71 percent.

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