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Submission + - U.S. appeals court says NSA phone surveillance is not authorized by Congress

Submitted by IronOxen
IronOxen writes: A panel of three federal judges for the second circuit overturned an earlier ruling. The court has ruled that the bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful, in a landmark decision that clears the way for a full legal challenge against the National Security Agency. “We hold that the text of section 215 cannot bear the weight the government asks us to assign to it, and that it does not authorize the telephone metadata program,” concluded their judgement.

Submission + - F.C.C., in Net Neutrality Turnaround, Plans to Allow Fast Lane (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Dega704
Dega704 writes: "The Federal Communications Commission will propose new rules that allow Internet service providers to offer a faster lane through which to send video and other content to consumers, as long as a content company is willing to pay for it, according to people briefed on the proposals.

The proposed rules are a complete turnaround for the F.C.C. on the subject of so-called net neutrality, the principle that Internet users should have equal ability to see any content they choose, and that no content providers should be discriminated against in providing their offerings to consumers."

It would seem that fears about Tom Wheeler's lobbyist background were well-founded after all.
Security

Submission + - DHS Sends Tourists Home Over Twitter Jokes (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "In a classic case of 'we say destroy, you say party hard,' the US Dept. of Homeland Security detained a pair of British twentysomethings for 12 hours and then sent them packing back to the land of the cheeky retort. At issue is a Tweet sent by Leigh Van Bryan about plans to 'destroy America,' starting with LA, which, really, isn't that bad an idea."
Music

Submission + - Pop artists support Megaupload; Universal censors 1

Submitted by TheSHAD0W
TheSHAD0W writes: Several well-known artists, including P. Diddy, Will.I.Am, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West produced a song in support of the site Megaupload, recently targeted by law enforcement as a "rogue site". The music video was gaining popularity — until Youtube received a takedown notice from Universal Media Group, claiming it violated their copyrights.

Comment Does NOT apply to US Citizens (Score 3, Informative) 676

by adiemus (#28134227) Attached to: Homeland Security To Scan Citizens Exiting US

TFA seems to be wrong about this including US citizens. While I think fingerprinting anyone, citizen or not, coming into the country isn't something we should be doing, and certainly not when exiting, the bit about fingerprinting exiting US citizens is found nowhere other than in the article from IT News Australia. The actual DHS press release is very specific that this is a planned extension to US-VISIT and, as such, only applies to non-US-citizens:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=AUSASAIR.story&STORY=/www/story/05-28-2009/0005034173&EDATE=THU+May+28+2009,+01:22+PM

Several additional articles all clearly indicating that this applies only to non-citizens:

http://www.fcw.com/Articles/2009/05/27/Web-US-VISIT-pilots.aspx
http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090528_7835.php?oref=rss
Government

DHS Seeks "Ethical Hackers" To Protect Federal Net Infrastructure 133

Posted by Soulskill from the loaded-phrases dept.
Death Metal sends this excerpt from an AP report: "General Dynamics Information Technology put out an ad last month on behalf of the Homeland Security Department seeking someone who could 'think like the bad guy.' Applicants, it said, must understand hackers' tools and tactics and be able to analyze Internet traffic and identify vulnerabilities in the federal systems. In the Pentagon's budget request submitted last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Pentagon will increase the number of cyberexperts it can train each year from 80 to 250 by 2011. With warnings that the US is ill-prepared for a cyberattack, the White House conducted a 60-day study of how the government can better manage and use technology (PDF) to protect everything from the electrical grid and stock markets to tax data, airline flight systems, and nuclear launch codes. ... Nadia Short, vice president at General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, said the job posting for ethical hackers fills a critical need for the government."
Software

Making BitTorrent Clients Prioritize By Geography? 227

Posted by timothy from the hey-you're-blocking-my-bandwidth dept.
Daengbo writes "While I live in S.Korea and have virtually unlimited bandwidth in and out of the country, not all my Asian friends are so lucky. Many of the SE Asian and African countries have small international pipes. Even when a user has a high-speed local connection, downloads from abroad will trickle in. Bittorrent clients apparently don't prioritize other users on the same ISP or at least in the same country. Why is that? Is it difficult to manage? If I were to write a plug-in for, say, Deluge, what hurdles would I be likely to come across? If this functionality is available in other clients or through plug-ins, please chime in."
Privacy

European Police Plan to Remote-Search Hard Drives 260

Posted by timothy from the oh-you-needn't-come-into-the-office dept.
Smivs points out a blandly-worded story from the BBC with scary implications, excerpting "Remote searches of suspect computers will form part of an EU plan to tackle hi-tech crime. The five-year action plan will take steps to combat the growth in cyber theft and the machines used to spread spam and other malicious programs. It will also encourage better sharing of data among European police forces to track down and prosecute criminals. Europol will co-ordinate the investigative work and also issue alerts about cyber crime sprees."
Games

Entertainment Software Association Following RIAA? 204

Posted by kdawson from the iceberg-ho dept.
cavis writes "My organization just received an e-mail from the Intellectual Property enforcement division of the Entertainment Software Association. It accuses one particular IP address with 'infringing the copyright rights of one or more ESA members by copying and distributing unauthorized copies of game products (through peer-to-peer or similar software/services).' It goes on to name the filename and the application: Limewire. Has anyone had any contact with this group? Are they following the RIAA's lead and pursuing litigation for peer-to-peer piracy? I'm just trying to evaluate what I am in for as I try to battle P2P within my network." Read on for more details.
Education

Submission + - 'Floating Bridge' Property of Water Found (physorg.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "When exposed to high voltage, water does some interesting things. From the article, ' When exposed to a high-voltage electric field, water in two beakers climbs out of the beakers and crosses empty space to meet, forming the water bridge. The liquid bridge, hovering in space, appears to the human eye to defy gravity. Upon investigating the phenomenon, the scientists found that water was being transported from one beaker to another, usually from the anode beaker to the cathode beaker. The cylindrical water bridge, with a diameter of 1-3 mm, could remain intact when the beakers were pulled apart at a distance of up to 25 mm.'"
Democrats

Submission + - Amendment Would Require University P2P Filtering (mistakengoal.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: MistakenGoal, Inside Higher Ed and ArsTechnica are reporting on a new amendment to the the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, entitled "Campus-Based Digital Theft Protection". Introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), it would require that that the Secretary of Education single out the 25 schools that have "received during the previous calendar year the highest number of written notices...alleging infringement of copyright," and require those schools to "Provide evidence to the Secretary [of Education] that the institution has developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property." The bill will likely pass within the next week, without any mainstream media coverage, so if you want to call your Senators, you had better do it quickly!
The Internet

Submission + - More on the National Internet Tax effort

Submitted by
bob_calder
bob_calder writes: "The Business Journals have a story on: California legislators "walked away from 2 billion a year in revenue" by declining to get on the bus with an Internet tax. Don't worry though, supporters of the tax still think they have a chance in New York, Texas and Florida. At the moment, the Streamlined Sales Tax Initiative includes some large states already, New Jersey, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. sanjose.bizjournals"
Slashback

Submission + - Followup: Free Linux Kernel Driver Development Q&a

Submitted by schwaang
schwaang writes: The recent announcement by Linux Kernel Developer Greg Kroah-Hartman that "the Linux kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development" seems to have stirred up some interest as well as some questions (see the Slashdot discussion about the announcement here).

Greg K-H addresses some of the Slashdotters' questions and maybe even raises a few more in a new Free Linux Driver Development FAQ on his blog. An excerpt:

Q: Are companies really going to do this?
A: Yes, already we have received a number of serious queries from companies about producing Linux drivers for their devices. More information will be available later when details are firmed up.

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