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Censorship

ACLU Wins, No Sexting Charges For NJ Teens 406

Posted by kdawson from the know-it-when-i-see-it dept.
Following up on the "sexting" case we've discussed in recent days, oliphaunt sends word from the Times-Tribune that a New Jersey federal judge has ordered the prosecutor not to file charges in the cases of three teenage girls whose cell phones were confiscated. "Wyoming [NJ] County District Attorney George Skumanick Jr. cannot charge three teenage girls who appeared in photographs seminude traded by classmates last year, a judge ruled Monday. US District Judge James M. Munley granted a request by the American Civil Liberties Union to temporarily stop Mr. Skumanick from filing felony charges against the Tunkhannock Area School District students."
The Internet

Germany Legislates For Mandatory Web Filters 309

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-got-a-finger-you-can-filter dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Germany's Minister for Families has announced a legislative initiative to force ISPs to implement a government-mandated block list (in English), which will be updated daily. The BKA (Germany's equivalent of the FBI) will be in charge of generating and maintaining the list. As usual, this is being brought in under the 'fight child porn' guise. The minister is quoted as saying: 'We must not water down the problem' in reply to being challenged that this law and technology could be used to censor other content. She then went on to say: 'I can't know what wishes and plans future governments will develop.' She has agreed the principle of the legislation with the interior minister and the technology minister, which in German coalition government terms means it's pretty much a done deal."
Data Storage

Why Not To Shout At Your Disk Array 125

Posted by timothy from the that's-what-your-subordinates-are-for dept.
Brendan Gregg of Sun's Fishworks lab has an interesting video demo up at YouTube demonstrating just how bad vibes, if expressed with sufficient volume in front of a rack full of disks, can cause a spike in disk latency. White noise, evidently, doesn't do them much harm. (Maybe they just feel awkward to get yelled at on camera.)
Security

The Trap Set By the FBI For Half Life 2 Hacker 637

Posted by timothy from the well-deserved-shadenfreude dept.
eldavojohn writes "You might remember the tiny news that Half Life 2 source code was leaked in 2003 ... it is the 6th most visited Slashdot story with over one kilocomment. Well, did anything happen to the source of the leak, the German hacker Axel 'Ago' Gembe? Wired is reporting he was offered a job interview so that Valve could get him into the US and bag him for charges. It's not the first time the FBI tried this trick: 'The same Seattle FBI office had successfully used an identical gambit in 2001, when they created a fake startup company called Invita, and lured two known Russian hackers to the US for a job interview, where they were arrested.'"

Comment Cooling the server room with water (Score 1) 414

by flashdot1234 (#24791169) Attached to: Cost-Effective Server Room Air Conditioning?

I once made a cooling system for a small server room that used tap water. I don't want to recommend this though, because running significant amounts of water through a server room is generally a bad idea :)

I got some aluminium sheet bent to a duct shape, so that it ran from about 20 cm from the ceiling to about 50 cm above the floor. Inside the duct i placed several of the larger type radiators that are used when cooling overclocked computers with water. At the end of the duct I placed 3 20mm fans that would pull air through from the ceiling down through the radiators and out at the bottom. A thermostat stopped the fans and waterflow (magnetic valve) when the temperature was low enough. Radiators were connected in serial, so that the coolest water was closest to the fans.

This server room was inside an industrial area where water was abundant and free of charge, so water came right from the pipes, ran through the radiators in the duct, and then right down the drain after cooling the air.

CONS: Not a very efficient setup, requires some DIY work, and you risk flooding your server room.

PROS: In this case it was cheap, and we had no accidents ;)
Robotics

A Modular Snake Robot 103

Posted by kdawson from the snakes-in-a-pipe dept.
StCredZero writes "Researchers at CMU are working on a Modular Snake Robot. A video from this site is up on YouTube. In addition to being able to traverse a wide variety of terrain, the robot can also climb poles, the inside of pipes and conduits, small grooves in walls, and probably more. It can also swim. Many robots can do one of those tasks. This one can do them all. That's quite an accomplishment. This has tremendous potential for the maintenance of fiber optic networks, pipelines, and plumbing in large buildings; and also as a spy device. (I wonder how loud it is?)"
Portables (Games)

Is the Game Boy the Toughest Product Ever Made? 547

Posted by kdawson from the electronic-cockroaches dept.
An anonymous reader writes "CNET is running an article about tough technology, which aptly includes the Nintendo Game Boy, a device so tough that mine still works after many years. 'There's no two ways about it: the original Game Boy is one of the hardest gadgets ever conceived. Rumor has it this beige behemoth isn't made of plastic, but from the skulls of fallen Gurkhas. If you ever saw one that was broken, it's because it lost a boxing match with a nuclear bomb — on points.' So do you agree that the Game Boy is the toughest consumer electronics device ever made?"
Security

RIAA Website Hacked 247

Posted by CmdrTaco from the maybe-someone-just-typed-rm--rf dept.
gattaca writes "A lack of security controls allowed hackers to "wipe" the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) website on Sunday. The existence of an SQL injection attack on the RIAA's site came to light via social network news site Reddit. Soon after hackers were making merry, turning the site into a blank slate, among other things. The RIAA has restored RIAA.org, although whether it's any more secure than before remains open to question, TorrentFreak reports."
Portables

Body Heat Could Charge Your Cellphone 94

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the powered-clothing dept.
An anonymous reader writes to mention Nature is reporting that scientists have discovered a much more efficient way to use silicon to convert heat into electricity. This offers the possibility of many different applications including possibly charging your portable electronics just by wearing them close to your skin. "The concept of converting waste heat into electricity isn't exactly new, but it never really materialized due to efficiency hurdles. Now, scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley think they may have found a key [to] increase the conversion efficiency by a factor of 100."
Security

American Security Firms Collaborate on Chinese Olympics 68

Posted by Zonk from the helping-hands-across-the-world dept.
A New York Times story at News.com notes the efforts of American security organizations to help the Chinese government prepare for the coming Olympic games. Critics argue this assistance violates the spirit of Congressional sanctions, and that the technology left behind after the games are over could be used to track dissident elements. "'I don't know of an intelligence-gathering operation in the world that, when given a new toy, doesn't use it,' said Steve Vickers, a former head of criminal intelligence for the Hong Kong police who now leads a consulting firm. Indeed, the autumn issue of the magazine of China's public security ministry prominently listed places of religious worship and Internet cafes as locations to install new cameras. "
Mozilla

The Morality of Web Advertisement Blocking 974

Posted by Zonk from the can't-see-a-problem dept.
An anonymous reader writes "There has been some recent coverage of the over-hyped boycott of Firefox, in response to the rising popularity of the Adblock Plus Firefox extension. A recent editorial on CNET looks into the issue, and explores the moral and legal issues involved in client-side web advertisement blocking. Whereas TiVo users freeload on the relatively fixed broadcasting costs paid by TV networks, users of web ad-blocking technology are actively denying website owners revenue that would otherwise go to pay for the bandwidth costs of serving up those web pages. If the website designer has to pay for bits each time you view their website without viewing their banner ads, are you engaged in theft? Is this right? "
Software

Ext3cow Versioning File System Released For 2.6 241

Posted by kdawson from the have-a-cow-man dept.
Zachary Peterson writes "Ext3cow, an open-source versioning file system based on ext3, has been released for the 2.6 Linux kernel. Ext3cow allows users to view their file system as it appeared at any point in time through a natural, time-shifting interface. This is can be very useful for revision control, intrusion detection, preventing data loss, and meeting the requirements of data retention legislation. See the link for kernel patches and details."
Science

Electrically Conductive Cement 159

Posted by samzenpus from the let-your-display-harden dept.
zero_offset writes "The Tokyo Institute of Technology has announced a process for creating an inexpensive, nearly transparent, electrically conductive alumina cement. The conductivity is comparable to metal, and the transparency should be adequate for use in display panels. The process relies upon commonplace and inexpensive metals compared to the rare metals such as iridium currently used in display panels."
Sci-Fi

Revolution, Flashmobs and Brain Implants in 2035 327

Posted by CmdrTaco from the some-a-lot-sooner-than-others dept.
siddesu writes "Marxist revolution, WMDs, flashmobs and other sci-fi items are coming soon in a country near you, according to the UK Ministry of Defence. 'Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" — groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups. This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces.'"

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