davetd02 - Slashdot User

Twitter Developing Technology To Thwart Censorship 144

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @09:50PM from the unblockable-force dept.

SHMG writes "Micro-blogging site Twitter is developing technology that will prevent government censorship, after Iran and China moved to censor its users. Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Twitter CEO and co-founder Evan Williams said the company was working on 'hacks' to stop any blocking by foreign governments. 'We are partially blocked in China and other places and we were in Iran as well,' he said. 'The most productive way to fight that is not by trying to engage China and other governments whose very being is against what we are about.'"

How To Spread Word About My FOSS Project? 244

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 27, 2010 @06:41PM from the luck-plays-a-role dept.

An anonymous reader writes "I'm in a bit of a bind with an open source web software project of mine. It's a very small project that I've been developing for over three years. By now it's got a promising feature set, but very few users and virtually no community around it. The problem is that people I have asked to try it refuse to do so because it doesn't have a thriving community. It's an infinite loop: without users, we won't have a community, and without a community, users aren't coming. So, Slashdot, my question is: how can I build a community and help get the word out about a project led by 2 people and with only 5-6 regulars on our forum and IRC?"

Comment Re:When will they ever learn? (Score 1) 149

by davetd02 on Tuesday June 17, 2008 @05:48PM (#23830985) Attached to: US Court Disconnects Canadian Domain Name Scammers

With a big stick. Namely, if they don't show up then the court will enter a default judgment and seize any assets that can be found in the US. If those aren't enough, the US court will ask the Canadian courts to enforce the default judgment. Most countries have treaties regarding the enforcement of judgments (I don't know if Canada-US do, but I'd assume) and so the Canadian mounties will then start seizing assets in Canada and delivering them to the US embassy.

Congressman Hollywood Wants To Make DMCA Tougher 228

Posted by Zonk on Thursday December 13, 2007 @02:53PM from the who-elects-these-guys dept.

Stormy seas writes "Congressman 'Hollywood' Howard Berman (D-CA) used a House subcommittee hearing today to express his view that the DMCA was in need of a rewrite. In his view, it doesn't go far enough. During his opening remarks for a hearing on the PRO-IP Act, Berman said that the DMCA's Safe Harbor needs further scrutiny and that it might be time to make filtering mandatory. There's more: Berman also 'wants to examine the "effectiveness of takedown notices" under the DMCA, and he'd like to take another look at whether filtering technology has advanced to the point where Congress ought to mandate it in certain situations.'"

Ron Paul Spam Traced to Reactor Botnet 506

Posted by Zonk on Thursday December 06, 2007 @09:15PM from the trying-to-stuff-the-ballot-and-inboxes dept.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? writes "Ars is reporting that the Ron Paul spam has been traced back to the Reactor botnet. According to the SecureWorks report, which originally identified the spammer, someone calling themselves nenastnyj was behind it and their botnet control server has been shut down. The Ron Paul campaign has previously denied any connection with this spam campaign."

Spam Lawsuit's Last Laugh is at Hormel's Expense 172

Posted by Zonk on Friday November 30, 2007 @01:43PM from the junk-email-junk-email-eggs-and-junk-email dept.

Brian Cartmell writes "An article at the Minneapolis — StarTribune site covers a significant setback for the Hormel food company, in a case that's being closely watched by security companies across the country. Seattle-based Spam Arrest has gone up against the creator of the food substance in court, fighting for the right to use the word spam in its company name. The US Trademark Trial and Appeal board has sided with the spam fighters, agreeing that consumers of the Spam product would never confuse the food with junk email. 'Derek Newman, Spam Arrest's attorney, said the decision opens the door for many other anti-spam software companies ... "Spam Arrest fought this battle for the whole software industry," Newman said.'"

The Evolving Face of Credit Card Scams 232

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 20, 2007 @09:13PM from the caveat-clickor dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The 12 Angry Men have a followup to their piece on the cross-sell scam credit card companies have begun using. Their new article concerns another evolving scam being employed, where users are racking up huge fees and charges on cards that have never even been activated. The article goes deep into the standard way the scam plays out, as well as detailing some interesting history on how credit applications are processed, and where they are typically (and frighteningly) subject to tampering."

New NSA-Approved Encryption Standard May Contain Backdoor 322

Posted by Zonk on Thursday November 15, 2007 @02:21PM from the find-out-by-knocking dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Bruce Schneier has a story on Wired about the new official standard for random-number generators the NIST released this year that will likely be followed by software and hardware developers around the world. There are four different approved techniques (pdf), called DRBGs, or 'Deterministic Random Bit Generators' based on existing cryptographic primitives. One is based on hash functions, one on HMAC, one on block ciphers and one on elliptic curves. The generator based on elliptic curves called Dual_EC_DRBG has been championed by the NSA and contains a weakness that can only be described as a backdoor. In a presentation at the CRYPTO 2007 conference (pdf) in August, Dan Shumow and Niels Ferguson showed that there are constants in the standard used to define the algorithm's elliptic curve that have a relationship with a second, secret set of numbers that can act as a kind of skeleton key. If you know the secret numbers, you can completely break any instantiation of Dual_EC_DRBG."

WordPress 2.3 Does Not Spy On Users [UPDATED] 229

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 25, 2007 @12:37PM from the if-you-don't-like-it-fork-it dept.

Marilyn Miller writes "Popular open-source blogging engine WordPress has been upgraded to 2.3 — with some unexpected nasties in the mix. As of version 2.3, WordPress now periodically (every 12 hours) sends personally identifying information (blog name & URI) to the mothership, along with an alarming amount of information including $_SERVER dumps, a list of installed plugins, and your current PHP/MySQL settings. Most unfortunately, it does not provide any way of disabling this functionality, and WordPress does not have any privacy policy protecting this information. In a thread about the issue, lead developer Matt Mullenweg defends his actions and staunchly refuses to add an opt-in interface, telling users to 'fork WordPress' if they aren't willing to put up with this behavior." Update: 09/25 17:52 GMT by KD : This article is misleading enough to be called "just wrong." Matt Mullenweg writes: "As mentioned in our release announcement, the update notification sends your blog URL, plugins, and version info when it checks api.wordpress.org for new and compatible updates. It does not include $_SERVER dumps, or any settings beyond version numbers (for checking compatibility), or your blog name, or your credit card number. We do provide a way of disabling this feature; in fact I link to one of the plugins in the release announcement and in my original response to Morty's thread."

Cory Doctorow's Fiction About An Evil Google 182

Posted by CowboyNeal on Friday September 21, 2007 @12:23AM from the government-search-engines dept.

ahem writes "I saw a link on Valleywag to a story written by Cory Doctorow about what would happen if Google got in bed with the Dept. of Homeland Security. Chilling, well written, but the ending was a bit anti-climactic for my tastes."

eBay Seller Sues Autodesk for $10 Million 318

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thursday September 13, 2007 @09:21PM from the autodesk-resellers-hold-their-breath dept.

Miasik.Net writes "A lawsuit has been filed in Federal Court (US District Court for the Western Washington District C07-1189 JLR) that alleges Autodesk, Inc maker of the industry standard AutoCAD software and their attorney Andrew S. Mackay have devised an illegal scheme to have used copies of their software removed from the eBay site using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Finally someone decided that non-transferable licenses must be stopped." While proving $10 million in damages might prove difficult, the reasoning behind the case is pretty sound.

NASA Building Massively Heat-Resistant Chips 172

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday September 11, 2007 @11:47PM from the don't-bother-with-water-cooling dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA researchers have designed and built a new circuit chip that can take the heat of a blast furnace and keep on performing. Silicon carbide (SiC) chips can operate at 600 degrees Celsius or 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit where conventional silicon-based electronics — limited to about 350 C — would fail. The new silicon carbide differential amplifier integrated circuit chip may provide benefits to anything requiring long-lasting electronic circuits in very hot environments such as jets, spacecraft, and industrial machinery. In particular, NASA said SiC applications will include energy storage, renewable energy, nuclear power, and electrical drives."

Solar Craft Flies Through Two Nights 156

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 10, 2007 @04:43PM from the nasa-awash-with-envy dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A solar-powered, unmanned craft has flown for 54 hours — a record for both unmanned aerial vehicles and solar craft. None before has managed to store enough solar energy to fly through more than one night. There is also a video showing the 18m carbon fiber wing craft being launched."

Spotlight on Facebook Groups Affects Microsoft 150

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday September 10, 2007 @03:17PM from the hate-to-be-in-the-marketing-managers-shoes dept.

NewsCloud writes "After Slashdot reported Facebook Exposes Advertisers To Hate Speech, the company removed its F**k Islam group for a day (it's back up now). According to the New York Times, 'Facebook declined to comment on Friday on the subject of hate speech or on what steps had been taken.' It turns out that Microsoft is the digital advertising provider for Facebook serving up ads for companies such as NetFlix, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and Coca Cola. But for now, the Microsoft-served ads for all Facebook group home pages (even those complying with Facebook's Terms of Use) appear to have been taken off the site. For its part, NetFlix told me to address any concerns about its own ad placement along obscene speech with Facebook. T-Mobile said they would look into it."

Journal Journal: Bill Moyers Is Lame

Journal by pudge on Monday September 10, 2007 @03:49AM

I watched Bill Moyers last night. It just happened to be on and I was going to change the channel, but I hit Info and saw he was talking about the link between "evangelical Christians" and "mountaintop mining."

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