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Security

Malicious Hardware Hacking May Be the Next Frontier 146

An anonymous reader writes "It's a given that hackers will target software, and that's enough for many people to worry about. But now there's the possibility that hackers would hide malicious code in the hardware itself. A hardware hack could be an annoyance, by stopping a mobile phone from functioning. Or it could be more dangerous, if it damages the way a critical system operates. Villasenor says there are several types of attacks. Broadly they would fall into two categories: one is when a block stops a chip from functioning, while the other involves shipping data out."
Businesses

Xfire Purchased, Team Leaving 161

phorce phed and several other readers sent news that a system notification was sent out this evening through the Xfire IM client, to wit: "Xfire was bought by new owners today. Most of the team that has built Xfire over the last six years is leaving. We enjoyed working for you for the last 127 releases and wish we could stay to create the next 127. Good bye, good luck, and game on. — The Xfire Team." According to Wikipedia, the new owner is 3D Realms.
Education

Chicago Mayor Calls For "Brainiac High" 419

theodp writes "In a private lunch with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, BusinessWeek's Michael Arndt was taken aback by the mayor's candid monologues against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the failure of public schools — Chicago's included — to adequately train kids today in technology, math, and science. Among the education fixes Daley said he's contemplating are a fifth year of high school and elite math and science academies for Chicago's brainiest students. Endless wars that divert hundreds of billions a year from schools and job training are also undermining America's competitiveness, Daley added, wondering where the public outrage is."

Comment Re:speedbump (Score 1) 624

Indeed: the very face of evil. We must incinerate it (with fire), lest the accursed audio codec rise up and slit our throats in the dead of night! Damn Apple and their fashionable products. Damn them!

Comment Re:"Living Constitution" (Score 1) 1252

I feel your tidbit about Thomas Jefferson founding the Democratic party is rather misleading. He founded the Democratic-Republican party, which later disassembled itself into Democrats and Republicans, but his views cannot be easily categorized one way or the other. On the other hand, despite his idealist notions of strict constructionism, he ultimately succumbs to pragmatism.

Look at the Louisiana Purchase, for example. He had no authority to authorize the purchase, but it was too good to pass up, so he went through with it anyway. Besides which, he contributed directly to the cause one of the main influences on the issue of States' Rights: the Civil War. His Virginia Resolution introduced the concepts of nullification and succession in protest of the Alien and Sedition Acts. With the conclusion of the Civil War, states' rights were debased somewhat and the issue died to the point that it was forgotten for decades, leading to the further erosion of states' rights.

This isn't to say I'm a person who disagrees with the concept of having a centralized, federal government. Personally, I see that type of oversight as necessary and more efficient in a lot of ways, but the fact remains that your claims about Jefferson are a bit preposterous.

Comment Re:Other distros? (Score 3, Informative) 220

Actually, there's a minimal iso image for a net install and you can install a command-line-only system from the alternate install disk. Both use a modified version of the Debian ncurses installer. I've used it both options a few times and found them to be very useful for building a lightweight system from the ground up.

Comment Re:Blame piracy (Score 1) 497

The idea that a decrease in piracy will lead to a decrease in price is incredibly naïve. Even if pirates decided they were going to actually buy games all of the sudden, prices wouldn't change in the slightest. Like it or not, in our economic system, the overwhelming goal is to make money and lots of it. Prices will never go down. The genie is out of the bottle. Publishers have found that they can routinely charge $50 for a brand new game, and they're working their up to $60. Look at Modern Warfare 2. Personally, I find your sentiment manipulative, but you are entitled to your opinion.
Hardware

The Ultimate Geek Christmas Card 122

An anonymous reader writes "CNET reports on the world's most geeky Christmas card, and also the most expensive. The card is made out of a 1st gen iPhone, hacked into a Christmas card using cardboard, paper and glue. The card includes a virtual 'bauble' which uses the iPhone's accelerometer to recreate Christmas decorations that bounce and move with the card. The makers of the card say that because of the iPhone's battery life 'you probably don't want to post it anywhere it will take more than 3 days to arrive.'"
The Courts

CRIA Faces $60 Billion Lawsuit 280

jvillain writes "The Canadian Recording Industry Association faces a lawsuit for 60 billion dollars over willful infringement. These numbers may sound outrageous, yet they are based on the same rules that led the recording industry to claim a single file sharer is liable for millions in damages. Since these exact same companies are currently in the middle of trying to force the Canadian government to bring in a DMCA for Canada, it will be interesting to see how they try to spin this."
Space

Giant Ribbon Discovered At Edge of Solar System 251

beadwindow writes "NASA's IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) spacecraft has made the first all-sky maps of the heliosphere and the results have taken researchers by surprise. The maps are bisected by a bright, winding ribbon of unknown origin: 'This is a shocking new result,' says IBEX principal investigator Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute. 'We had no idea this ribbon existed — or what has created it. Our previous ideas about the outer heliosphere are going to have to be revised.' Another NASA scientist notes, '"This ribbon winds between the two Voyager spacecraft and was not observed by either of them.'"
The Media

Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Stealing His Content 504

Hugh Pickens writes Weston Kosova writes in Newsweek that Rupert Murdoch gave an impassioned speech to media executives in Beijing decrying that search engines — in particular Google — are stealing from him, because Google links to his stories but doesn't pay News Corp. to do so. 'The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content,' Murdoch says. 'But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators — the people in this hall — who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph.' But if Murdoch really thinks Google is stealing from him, and if he really wants Google to stop driving all those readers to his Web sites at no charge, he can simply stop Google from linking to their news stories by going to his Web site's robot.txt file and adding 'Disallow.'"

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