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Submission + - Cop Tries To Sue Woman Who Videotaped Beating (techdirt.com) 4

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A police officer who was disciplined for his role in a massive beating of a guy (many broken bones in his face and permanent partial blindness) is looking to bring criminal wiretapping charges against the woman who caught much of the incident on video. The guy received a 45-day suspension. He does not appear to deny anything that happened in the video. But he apparently thinks it shouldn't have been filmed.
Security

Submission + - SpyEye Trojan Source Code Leaked (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: The SpyEye malware kit has long been both the bane of unsuspecting victims and a boon for cyber-criminals. Now, according to security researchers, the situation may have taken a turn for the worse.

The SpyEye Builder patch source code for release 1.3.45 was leaked by the Reverse Engineers Dream Crew (RED Crew) recently after a crew member was able to locate a copy of SpyEye Builder 1.3.45 and create a tutorial that enables a reader with SpyEye Builder to crack the hardware identification.

The fact that SpyEye has plagued victims around the world is not in doubt. In April, police in the U.K. arrested a handful of people in connection with a bank fraud operation that used SpyEye to steal money and banking information.
Government

Submission + - China praises UK Internet Censorship Plan (zeropaid.com)

Submitted by mormop
mormop writes: The Chinese government has praised UK Prime Minister David Cameron's plan for censoring social networking sites at times when the government feels threatened believing it legitimises China own behaviour.
The Courts

Submission + - Driver using two cell phones gets year driving ban (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "This guy is the poster boy for why cell phone usage in cars should be banned in more places. According to press out of the United Kingdom, a man who was driving at 70MPH while texting on one phone and talking on the other has been banned from driving for a year. Initial reports said that the driver, David Secker was apparently using his knees to steer the car, an accusation he refuted in court apparently."

Submission + - Mussels With Hydrogen Fuel Cells Found (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by
greenrainbow
greenrainbow writes: "According to scientists, there are mussels at the bottom of the ocean that are efficiently converting hydrogen into energy in their very own, nature-made hydrogen fuel cells. The mussels were found near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor and have onboard symbiotic bacteria that convert hydrogen into energy. With this discovery, researchers might be able to clone the hydrogen eating bacteria to create all-natural hydrogen fuel cells to power things other than sea life."
Music

Submission + - Music Copyright War Looming (nytimes.com)

Submitted by quarterbuck
quarterbuck writes: When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted “termination rights,” which allow them to regain control of their work after 35 years, so long as they apply at least two years in advance. Recordings from 1978 are the first to fall under the purview of the law, but in a matter of months, hits from 1979, like “The Long Run” by the Eagles and “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, will be in the same situation
The Courts

Submission + - Copyright Wiretaps are Hollywood's "PATRIOT (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ars is reporting that the CCIA is calling the copyright wiretaps requested by the IP Czar 'Hollywood's PATRIOT Act'. For those who don't remember, IP Czar Victoria Espinel recently wrote a report calling for more charges of felony copyright infringement under the NET Act, as well as felony charges for illegal web streaming, authorization for the use of wiretaps in going after copyright infringement cases, and several other measures. In short, this means that the copyright cops are coming online.
Botnet

Operation Payback and Hactivism 101 423

Posted by CmdrTaco from the tread-softly dept.
Orome1 writes "While individual acts of hacktivism are inconvenient, something else happens when hacktivists group together — they commonly perform a DDoS attack. Techniques have advanced to automate the process, making the attacks more powerful and thus more able to bypass security controls — the effect, however, remains the same. Let us take a look at the recent Operation Payback which has gained notoriety in the past few months."
Image

IT Worker's Revenge Lands Her In Jail 347

Posted by samzenpus from the bad-idea dept.
aesoteric writes "A 30-year-old IT worker at a Florida-based health centre was this week sentenced to 19 months in a US federal prison for hacking, and then locking, her former employer's IT systems. Four days after being fired from the Suncoast Community Health Centers' for insubordination, Patricia Marie Fowler exacter her revenge by hacking the centre's systems, deleting files, changing passwords, removing access to infrastructure systems, and tampering with pay and accrued leave rates of staff."
Privacy

The First Truly Honest Privacy Policy 119

Posted by CmdrTaco from the honesty-is-the-best-policy dept.
itwbennett writes "You want to know what really happens to your data? Dan Tynan has penned the first completely honest privacy policy — surprisingly free of legalese. We dare you to use it on your website."
It's funny. Laugh.

Tofu Activists Spoof Meat-Based Indie Game 420

Posted by Soulskill from the have-a-burger-to-celebrate dept.
Faulkner39 writes "In response to the recently released independently developed platformer Super Meat Boy, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has released a Flash-based spoof game titled Super Tofu Boy. The spoof attempts to mirror the original by featuring a protagonist made of tofu and an antagonist made of meat in a statement promoting animal rights. Ironically, however, the original game is about a human boy who is vulnerable because he lacks skin (Meat Boy), raising the question: 'is the spoof in reality really about cannibalism?'" The Super Meat Boy team posted a response on their Twitter feed.

Comment Trademark infringement with FaceTime (Score -1, Troll) 1184

by edwardd (#32489430) Attached to: Apple Announces iPhone 4

I guess Apple is big enough that they no longer worry about infringing on other people's trademarks. FaceTime has been an instant messaging platform for years, it's not like they're new. Lots of large financial firms use them.

Come on Apple, how do you expect others to respect your trademarks if you don't respect other?

Comment Right move, wrong reasons (Score 1) 3

by edwardd (#30255738) Attached to: Archos releases Dev Edition firmware for Tablets

They've always been compliant in publishing the GPL'd source that they use or modify, but they're releasing this for the wrong reasons. One person on the archosfans forum (archilles) published code to jailbreak this model and get access to all the plugins, without publishing the details. Others have been very forthcoming with the internals they've reverse engineered.

Archos' response has been to put out an Angstrom Linux distribution, while wiping the DRM keys from the device. Even though they are distributing this, installing it will immediately void the warranty. This is certainly not a sign of good will. The only reason this being published is to try to stop people from hacking their boxes.
Linux

Submission + - Archos releases Dev Edition firmware for Tablets (archosfans.com) 3

Submitted by Charbax
Charbax writes: While Archos current "Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android" is a 4.8" WVGA Tablet hardware that runs Android 1.5 and soon 2.0 with the full Google Marketplace Experience (according to rumors), users of last year's 4.8" and 7" Archos Linux Tablets have been complaining that Archos firmware updates of its proprietary embedded Linux OS were too rare and added too little of the requested functionality. Under pressure from hackers demonstrating jailbreak methods, Archos has just now officially released the open-source Special Developer Edition firmware based on Angstrom Linux generated from a customized open embedded build for last year's Archos 5 and 7 Internet Media Tablets. If many talented developers join the community of Archos hackers to make software for this new Archos SDE firmware, Android, Angstrom Linux, Maemo Mer, Qt and Ubuntu Linux could be expected to run smoothly on it soon. Which could make it the ultimate pocket Linux Internet Tablet for Linux hackers. Installing Archos new SDE firmware permanently disables DRM playback and voids the warranty. The Archos 5/7 Internet Media Tablets are running on a 600mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor, with 60GB to 320GB of built-in hard drive storage and powerful hardware acceleration for 720p video playback and even HDMI output. The advantage of this open-source firmware working on last year's model is that the 250GB 4.8" Archos 5IMT Tablet now sells for $199 at Amazon.com and the 160GB 7" Archos 7IMT version is $209 and those are to be found even cheaper on ebay.

Comment Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score 5, Informative) 345

by edwardd (#29223749) Attached to: An End To Unencrypted Digital Cable TV and the HTPC

DVB-S cards can use smart cards to get premium (encrypted) channels as long as you have a subscription. They don't lock you out like cable does.

Unfortunately for American viewers, there is no legal way to do this. Although DVB-S is an international standard and widely adopted, current laws within the US prohibit using off the shelf hardware to decrypt the video signal. Doing this is considered signal theft.

Dish Network uses Nagra 3 encryption, as do some other providers in Europe. There are no legal conditional access modules available for this crypto system, so any use of these smart cards in devices other than what the provider supplies is considered theft, as well as a violation of the DMCA.

DirectTV uses it's own proprietary system and can only be legally used with their hardware.

It really sucks paying to loose control.

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