Submission + - Verizon Posts Message in Morse Code to Mock FCC's Net Neutrality Ruling

Submitted by HughPickens.com on Friday February 27, 2015 @04:14PM

HughPickens.com writes: Chris Matyszczyk reports at Cnet that Verizon has posted a message to the FCC titled: FCC’s ‘Throwback Thursday’ Move Imposes 1930s Rules on the Internet” written in Morse code. The first line of the release dated February 26, 1934 in old typewriter type reads: "Today (Feb.26) the Federal Communications Commission approved an order urged by President Obama that imposes rules on broadband Internet services that were written in the era of the steam locomotive and the telegraph." The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 along party lines in favor of new Internet service rules that prohibit blocking, slowing or prioritizing traffic. The rules, which have not yet been released, are opposed by cable and telephone companies that fear it will curb Internet growth and stifle payback on network investment. "It isn't a surprise that Verizon is a touch against Thursday's order. In 2012, it insisted that the very idea of Net neutrality squished its First and Fifth Amendment right," writes Matyszczyk. "I wonder, though, who will be attracted by this open mockery. Might this be a sign that Verizon doesn't think the fight is over at all?"

Submission + - Pharming Attack Targets Home Router DNS Settings (threatpost.com)

Submitted by msm1267 on Friday February 27, 2015 @04:05PM

msm1267 writes: Pharming attacks are generally network-based intrusions where the ultimate goal is to redirect a victim’s web traffic to a hacker-controlled webserver, generally through a malicious modification of DNS settings. Some of these attacks, however, are starting to move to the web and have their beginnings with a spam or phishing email.

Proofpoint yesterday reported on the latest iteration of this attack, also based in Brazil. The campaign was carried out during a five-week period starting in December when Proofpoint spotted phishing messages, fewer than 100, sent to customers of one of the country’s largest telecommunications companies.

Comment Party tonight? (Score 1) 1

by aidoneus on Saturday October 20, 2012 @07:05PM (#41717623) Attached to: Slashdot Anniversary: Cambridge, MA, US

Everyone still planning on going to the party tonight? Is there a reservation or room reserved for it?

Comment LoadStar BBS on a Commodore 64 in 1985 (Score 1) 387

by aidoneus on Friday April 06, 2012 @09:26PM (#39603873) Attached to: Online Services: The Internet Before the Internet

My first online experience dates back to using a brand new 300 baud modem for our Commodore 64 to connect to a BBS that I had sent away for information about called LoadStar. After a few months of playing around, my parents realized just how much their phone bill was getting hit for, and my few long distance calls to BBSs in California didn't help either ($2.99/minute long distance or something like that). I was grounded and the modem was put away for years. By the time we got a blazingly fast 486sx 33Mhz computer I was again allowed online, but only to call up nearby friends from high school for some games. then came Rise of the Triad and going to college and getting my first email address (still works too, 17 years later)!

Wow, I've been online longer than most college freshmen have been alive.

Submission + - Papermaster leaves after antennagate (nytimes.com)

Submitted by line-bundle on Saturday August 07, 2010 @04:06PM

line-bundle writes: "Mark Papermaster, the Apple executive in charge of hardware for the company’s flagship iPhone, has departed the company in the wake of widely reported problems with the antenna of the recently introduced iPhone 4.

It is not clear if Papermaster was kicked out or left on his own."

Previously, at the Apple press conference on the antenna issue, Mr Papermaster was not present. This was very unusual considering that he was in charge of the iPhone. Papermaster was featured before on slashdot here.

Big Dipper "Star" Actually a Sextuplet System 88

Posted by kdawson on Friday December 11, 2009 @01:48PM from the toil-and-trouble dept.

Theosis sends word that an astronomer at the University of Rochester and his colleagues have made the surprise discovery that Alcor, one of the brightest stars in the Big Dipper, is actually two stars; and it is apparently gravitationally bound to the four-star Mizar system, making the whole group a sextuplet. This would make the Mizar-Alcor sextuplet the second-nearest such system known. The discovery is especially surprising because Alcor is one of the most studied stars in the sky. The Mizar-Alcor system has been involved in many "firsts" in the history of astronomy: "Benedetto Castelli, Galileo's protege and collaborator, first observed with a telescope that Mizar was not a single star in 1617, and Galileo observed it a week after hearing about this from Castelli, and noted it in his notebooks... Those two stars, called Mizar A and Mizar B, together with Alcor, in 1857 became the first binary stars ever photographed through a telescope. In 1890, Mizar A was discovered to itself be a binary, being the first binary to be discovered using spectroscopy. In 1908, spectroscopy revealed that Mizar B was also a pair of stars, making the group the first-known quintuple star system."

Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday November 25, 2009 @01:32PM from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.

Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."

EA Looking Into Reviving Classic Games? 142

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday August 13, 2009 @05:52AM from the easier-than-being-creative dept.

Gamasutra reports that Electronic Arts has filed for trademarks on several popular old franchises: Populous, Wing Commander, Theme Park, and Road Rash. This, along with comments from Harvey Elliot of EA's Bright Light Studio, have led many to suspect that we may see new titles for those IPs in the near future. Elliot said, "If you remember all the old classics you played, if you go back and play them now, they're not the same. They were right for their time, and the trick with those games is coming up with what's right for the time now. I'm going to look at them at some point; I think there's an opportunity to bring those back in the future, but only if it's right for the time and not just a 'remake' or something. We'd need to do it in a way that's true to the original values, but would still make a great game today."

Scientists Isolate and Treat Parasite Causing Decline in Honey Bee Population 182

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday April 24, 2009 @06:34PM from the buzzing-with-excitement dept.

In a recent report, a team of scientists from Spain claims to have isolated and treated the parasite causing honey bee depopulation syndrome. Their hope is to prevent the continued decline of honey bee populations in Europe and the US. "The loss of honey bees could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. Honeybees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem. Honeybees are attacked by numerous pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites."

A Cyber-Attack On an American City 461

Posted by timothy on Wednesday April 22, 2009 @05:02PM from the if-by-one-day-you-mean-already dept.

Bruce Perens writes "Just after midnight on Thursday, April 9, unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes in the Northern California city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported. So I decided to change that."

Scientists Discover Exoplanet Less Than Twice the Mass of Earth 201

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday April 22, 2009 @12:13PM from the it's-so-small dept.

Snowblindeye writes with this excerpt from the European Southern Observatory: "Well-known exoplanet researcher Michel Mayor today announced the discovery of the lightest exoplanet found so far. The planet, 'e,' in the famous system Gliese 581, is only about twice the mass of Earth. The team also refined the orbit of the planet Gliese 581 d, first discovered in 2007, placing it well within the habitable zone, where liquid water oceans could exist. Planet Gliese 581 e orbits its host star — located only 20.5 light-years away in the constellation Libra ('the Scales') — in just 3.15 days. 'With only 1.9 Earth-masses, it is the least massive exoplanet ever detected and is, very likely, a rocky planet,' says co-author Xavier Bonfils from Grenoble Observatory. Being so close to its host star, the planet is not in the habitable zone. But another planet in this system appears to be. ... The planet furthest out, Gliese 581 d, orbits its host star in 66.8 days. 'Gliese 581 d is probably too massive to be made only of rocky material, but we can speculate that it is an icy planet that has migrated closer to the star,' says team member Stephane Udry. The new observations have revealed that this planet is in the habitable zone, where liquid water could exist. '"d" could even be covered by a large and deep ocean — it is the first serious "water world" candidate,' continued Udry."

Microsoft Family Safety Filter Blocks Google 332

Posted by timothy on Friday April 17, 2009 @10:37AM from the can-neither-confirm-nor-deny dept.

mike.rimov writes "I saw that part of the brand new Windows Live package is the Family Safety Filter, so I decided to give it a spin. Turned it on, set it to 'basic filtering' (their lowest level), and went to Google ... oops, it blocks Google! So I logged into the settings and added Google as an exception. Google still wouldn't come up. Just in case, I turned off the family filter: voila, Google. As we all know, 'Don't be evil' is not part of Microsoft's motto! Oh yeah — and with the filter on, Microsoft's own search engine, live.com comes up." Anomaly?

Obama Proposes High-Speed Rail System For the US 1385

Posted by timothy on Friday April 17, 2009 @09:48AM from the self-mucking-biodiesel-ponies dept.

fantomas writes "The BBC reports that 'US President Barack Obama has announced his "vision for high-speed rail" in the country, which would create jobs, ease congestion and save energy.' Can rail work in the land where the car is king? Would you travel on the new high speed lines?"

Android 1.5 SDK Is Released 135

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @04:27PM from the get-your-hack-on dept.

RadiusK writes "Starting today, developers can get an early look at the SDK for the next version of the Android platform. Version 1.5 introduces APIs for features such as soft keyboards, home screen widgets, live folders, and speech recognition. At the developer site, you can download the early-look Android 1.5 SDK, read important information about upgrading your Eclipse plugin and existing projects, and learn about what's new and improved in Android 1.5."

ISP Capping Is Becoming the New DRM 395

Posted by timothy on Monday April 13, 2009 @08:18AM from the upgrades-to-first-class dept.

Crazzaper writes "There's a lot of controversy over ISP capping with Time Warner leading the charge. Tom's Hardware has an interesting article about how capping is the new form of DRM at the ISP level. The author draws some comparison to business practices by large cable operators and their efforts to protect cable TV programming. While this is understandable from the cable operator's perspective, the article points out how capping will affect popular services such as Steam for game content publishing and distribution, cloud-computing and online media services. Apparently this is also an effective way of going after casual piracy."

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