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Censorship

Submission + - US-Australia tensions rise over net filter (delimiter.com.au)

Submitted by daria42
daria42 writes: Tensions between the US Government and its counterpart in Australia appear to be rising over Australia's proposal to filter the internet for objectionable content. The US government has raised its concerns over what it sees as potential censorship directly with the Australian Government. However, last night, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied he had had any approach from US State Department Officials.
Security

Submission + - Self-Destructing USB Stick Sold as Un-Hackable 3

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "PC World reports that Victorinox, maker of the legendary Swiss Army Knife, has launched a new super-secure memory stick that sounds like something out of Mission: Impossible. The Secure Pro USB comes in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB sizes, and provides a variety of security measures including fingerprint identification, a thermal sensor, and even a self-destruct mechanism. Victorinox says the Secure is "the most secure [device] of its kind available to the public." The Secure features a fingerprint scanner and a thermal sensor "so that the finger alone, detached from the body, will still not give access to the memory stick's contents." The product uses an integrated Single Chip Technology, so that there are no external and accessible lines between the different coding/security steps, as on multi-chip solutions making cracking the hardware impossible. Then there's the self-destruct mechanism. While offering no explanation of how it works, Victorinox will only say that if someone tries to forcibly open the memory stick it triggers a self-destruct mechanism that "irrevocably burns [the Secure's] CPU and memory chip." At a contest held in London, Victorinox put its money where its mouth was and put the Secure Pro to the test offering a £100,000 cash prize ($149,000) to a team of professional hackers if they could break into the USB drive within two hours. They failed."
Censorship

Calif. Petitions Supreme Court On Violent Video Game Bill 204

Posted by timothy from the high-priority-assignment dept.
eldavojohn writes "You know the drill, violent video game bill struck down because: "We hold that the Act, as presumptively invalid content-based restriction on speech, is subject to strict scrutiny and not the 'variable obscenity' standard from Ginsberg v. New York. Applying strict scrutiny, we hold that the Act violates rights protected by the First Amendment." Well, that didn't satisfy a PhD child psychologist turned Democratic California State Senator named Leland Yee who states in his press release that "California's violent video game law properly seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of excessively violent, interactive video games. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court — which has never heard a case dealing with violent video games — will accept our appeal and assist parents in keeping these harmful video games out of the hands of children. I believe the high court will uphold this law as Constitutional. In fact in Roper v. Simmons, the court agreed we need to treat children differently in the eyes of the law due to brain development." His appeal (in PDF) is here and you can find some industry reactions to the Supreme Court hearing at GamePolitics. Unfortunately Yee seems to be a bit more competent than old Jack Thompson, who is pushing a bill in Louisiana today."

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