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Comment Outsourcing Concern (Score 4, Interesting) 98

So, does this mean that the Indian Government will get to see everything that's outsourced to India, including US Government contracts?

Basically, any corrupt Indian official (which apparently, there are more than a few) with access can sell trade and/or government secrets from any outsourced company.

Way to set the standard NSA.

Government

Submission + - Postal Service to Discontinue Saturday Mail Delivery

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars each year as Americans increasingly rely on online communications that drive down mail volumes. Now Reuters reports that the Postal Service plans to drop Saturday delivery of first-class mail by August saving $2 Billion per year. "The Postal Service is advancing an important new approach to delivery that reflects the strong growth of our package business and responds to the financial realities resulting from America's changing mailing habits," says Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe. But thePostal Service is already facing some pushback for moving forward with delivery schedule changes."Today's announcement by Postmaster General Donahoe to eliminate six-day delivery is yet another death knell for the quality service provided by the U.S. Postal Service," says Jeanette Dwyer, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association. "To erode this service will undermine the Postal Service's core mission and is completely unacceptable."Package deliveries will continue under the new plan and were a bright spot in a bleak 2012 fiscal year, with package revenue rising 8.7 percent during the year. Donahoe saysthe changes would allow the Postal Service to continue benefiting from rising package deliveries as Americans order more products from sites such as eBay Inc and Amazon.com Inc."
Ubuntu

Submission + - Linux-friendly mini PC fast enough for Steam games (techreport.com)

crookedvulture writes: "Barebones mini PCs have been around for a while, and the latest one from Zotac is pretty unique. For $270, the Zbox ID42 offers a Sandy Bridge CPU, a discrete GeForce graphics processor, and all the integrated I/O and networking you'd expect from a modern PC. You have to add your own memory, hard drive, and operating system, but the latter shouldn't cost you a dime. The Zbox works well with not only Windows, but also Linux. Ubuntu even recognizes the included remote, which can be used to wake up the system, control XBMC, and navigate Steam's Big Picture interface. Team Fortress 2 for Linux is actually playable, albeit at a relatively low resolution and detail level. The hardware seems better suited to casual games. Zotac also makes a Plus version of the Zbox that comes bundled with RAM and a hard drive, but it costs an extra $130, and you can get much better components if you add them yourself. The user-friendly chassis makes filling out the system a trivial undertaking."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Games Workshop bullies author over use of the words "space marine" (boingboing.net)

jzoetewey writes: "An author I know (MCA Hogarth) recently had her book "Spots the Space Marine" taken off Amazon because Games Workshop claimed it violated their trademark. The interesting thing? Their trademark doesn't include ebooks or novels. Unfortunately, she doesn't have the money to fight them.

Plus the idea of a space marine was around long before they were.

Anyway, Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing has written something about it:"

Canada

Submission + - Sony Rootkit Redux: Canadian Business Groups Lobby For Right To Install Spyware (michaelgeist.ca)

An anonymous reader writes: Michael Geist reports that a coalition of Canadian industry groups, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Marketing Association, the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, are demanding legalized spyware for private enforcement purposes. The potential scope of coverage is breathtaking: a software program secretly installed by an entertainment software company designed to detect or investigate alleged copyright infringement would be covered by this exception. This exception could potentially cover programs designed to block access to certain websites (preventing the contravention of a law as would have been the case with SOPA), attempts to access wireless networks without authorization, or even keylogger programs tracking unsuspecting users (detection and investigation).

Comment Libraries Too (Score 4, Insightful) 342

I like the fact that my library (and most others) destroy records of checkouts after you return a book so that the information can't be used in an investigation or trial.

Just because I read some Karl Marx, doesn't make me a commie. Likewise, just because I texted a quote from the Koran doesn't make me a terrorist.

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