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Comment Re:Here's hoping (Score 1) 155

by Smarts (#39752593) Attached to: Australian ISP Wins Case Against Movie Studios

(...) get list of IP addresses from the swarm, match those to users via ISP."

Err no. Just because an IP is in a swarm it doesn't logically follow that someone is infringing. How much information has to be transferred for an infringement to occur?

Piatek et al in "Why My Printer Received a DMCA Takedown Notice" is also instructive.

Further, the issue of whether the person paying the ISP bill is automatically responsible for the infringement (or whether further identification is required) is also largely untested in this country.

Comment Re:Yes (Score 1) 504

But don't waste your time getting another bachelor's degree - go straight to graduate school.

Grad school can be a good option, but it's stupidly expensive.

I paid for my undergrad and two postgrad degrees in political science by working in IT helpdesk and junior sysadmin positions. You sure as hell don't need as CS degree to get a job on a helpdesk, and parlaying helpdesk experience into junior sysadmin jobs has worked for many slashdotters.

When I graduated I found I'd be taking a big pay cut to leave IT, so I stayed. I still have no relevant qualifications, not even vendor certs. Now I'm the youngest person in an in-house IT team... that I run.

I'm glad I studied, and I'm sure the alphabet after my name helped with various promotions, but I'm good at my job because of the things I learnt in helpdesk and sysadmin roles.
The Courts

Thomson Reuters Sues Over Open-Source Endnote-Alike Zotero 181

Posted by timothy from the gmu-also-home-of-econtalk dept.
Noksagt writes "Thomson Reuters, the owner of the Endnote reference management software, has filed a $10 million lawsuit and a request for injunction against the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia's George Mason University develops Zotero, a free and open source plugin to Mozilla Firefox that researchers may use to manage citations. Thomson alleges that GMU's Center for History and New Media reverse engineered Endnote and that the beta version of Zotero can convert (in violation of the Endnote EULA) the proprietary style files that are used by Endnote to format citations into the open CSL file format."
Networking

Japan To Get 1Gbps Home Fiber Connections 275

Posted by timothy from the yes-but-food-is-cheaper-elsewhere dept.
ashitaka writes "KDDI has announced that they will be launching a 1Gbps Internet service to single-family home and condo users in October. The service is supposedly synchronous, with 1Gbps in both directions, although the article implies that speeds will vary with location. Cost will be 5,985 yen/month (about US$56.50) for the basic Internet and IP phone service. This is intended to compete with NTT, who currently control over 70% of the Japanese FTTH market."
Music

Wal-Mart Ends DRM Support 231

Posted by Soulskill from the enjoy-your-rights dept.
An anonymous reader writes "So, you thought you did well to support the fledgling music industry by purchasing your tracks legally from the Wal-Mart store? Well, forget about moving these tracks to a new PC! Since they started selling DRM-free tracks last year, there's no money to be made in maintaining the DRM support systems, and in fact, support is being shut down. Make sure you circumvent the restrictions by burning the tracks to an old-fashioned CD before Wal-mart 'will no longer be able to assist with digital rights management issues for protected WMA files purchased from Walmart.com.' Support ends October 9th."
Yahoo!

Security Flaw In Yahoo Mail Exposes Plaintext Authentication Info 66

Posted by Soulskill from the who-needs-encryption-anyway dept.
holdenkarau writes "Yahoo!'s acquisition of open source mail client Zimbra has apparently brought some baggage to the mail team. The new Yahoo! desktop program transmits the authentication information in plain text. The flaw was discovered during a Yahoo 'hacku' Day at the University of Waterloo (the only Canadian school part of the trip). Compared to the recent news about Gmail exposing the names associated with accounts, this seems downright scary. So, if you have friends or relatives who might have installed Yahoo! desktop and value their e-mail accounts, now would be a good time to get them to change the password and switch back to the web interface."
Google

Google Reveals Wireless Vision — Open Networks 90

Posted by Soulskill from the optimizing-the-ethertubes dept.
Anti-Globalism writes with this excerpt from CNet: "Google's vision of tomorrow's wireless network is in stark contrast to how wireless operators do business today, setting the two sides on a possible collision course. Earlier this week, the search giant filed a patent application with the US Patent Office describing its vision of an open wireless network where smartphones aren't tied to any single cell phone network. In Google's open wireless world, phones and other wireless devices would search for the strongest, fastest connection at the most competitive price. Essentially, wireless operators' networks would be reduced to 'dumb pipes.'" The full patent application is available as well. Google founder Larry Page recently asked the FCC to free up portions of the broadcast spectrum for this purpose.
Government

California Sec. of State Wants Open Source E-Voting Systems 112

Posted by Soulskill from the nowhere-to-go-but-up dept.
Lucas123 writes "California's Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, was among a group of e-voting experts at MIT yesterday who said the nation's electronic voting systems are still not secure and many run on faulty software. Among the suggestions offered to fix the problem: use open source software, stop delivering e-voting machines to polling places weeks in advance of an election, and keep a paper trail for auditing purposes. Bowen also believes that a ubiquitous Internet voting system could not work without the use of a national ID card system."
Movies

Adobe Flaw Allows Full Movie Downloads For Free 166

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-not-a-bug-it's-a-feature dept.
webax writes with this excerpt from Reuters: "[An Adobe security hole] exposes online video content to the rampant piracy that plagued the music industry during the Napster era and is undermining efforts by retailers, movie studios and television networks to cash in on a huge Web audience. 'It's a fundamental flaw in the Adobe design. This was designed stupidly,' said Bruce Schneier ... The flaw rests in Adobe's Flash video servers that are connected to the company's players installed in nearly all of the world's Web-connected computers. The software doesn't encrypt online content, but only orders sent to a video player such as start and stop play. To boost download speeds, Adobe dropped a stringent security feature that protects the connection between the Adobe software and its players." webax also notes that the article suggests DRM as a potential solution to the problem.
Democrats

Obama Significantly Revises Technology Positions 940

Posted by timothy from the platitude-adjustment dept.
method9455 writes "Barack Obama has edited his official website on many issues, including a huge revision on the technology page. Strangely it seems net neutrality is no longer as important as it was a few months ago, and the swaths of detail have been removed and replaced with fairly vague rhetoric. Many technologists were alarmed with the choice of Joe Biden before, and now it appears their fears might have been well founded." Update: 09/22 18:07 GMT by T : Julian Sanchez of Ars Technica passed on a statement from an Obama campaign representative who points out that the changes in wording highlighted by Versionista aren't the whole story, and that more Obama tech-plan details are now available in a PDF, saying "there is absolutely no substantive change to our policy - folks who want more information can click to get our full plan."
The Courts

Activision Goes After Individual Game Pirates 216

Posted by Soulskill from the with-gusto dept.
brunascle writes "Activision has begun suing individual pirates of console games. Edge Online is reporting that they are going after a New York resident for allegedly copying Call of Duty 3 for the Xbox 360 and other games, seeking $30,000 to $150,000 in damages for each infringement. GamePolitics has also uncovered six other lawsuits with settlements between $1,000 and $100,000, in five of which the defendant was unrepresented." Activision's lawyers specifically told GamePolitics that the lawsuit wasn't targeting file-sharers, so they probably mean that the alleged pirate was reproducing and distributing physical copies of the game. The court complaint is available here (PDF).

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